THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

MEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA.  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE  THEORY  OF 


BY 
ARTHUR  KENYON  ROGERS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  September,   1923 


PREFACE 

The  logical  framework  of  the  position  which  as  a  matter 
of  theory  I  have  here  attempted  to  defend  will  be  found 
more  particularly  in  the  first  three  chapters.  These 
undertake  to  be  a  connected  piece  of  reasoning  which  to 
some  extent  stands  or  falls  as  a  whole.  The  two  more 
essential  features  are  the  conception  of  value,  and  the 
naturalistic  theory  of  duty  as  having  its  source  in  certain 
negative  emotional  restrictions  on  the  positive  life  of 
desire.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  I  disagree  with  his  conclu- 
sions on  almost  every  point,  I  should  like  to  acknowledge 
a  special  obligation  to  the  ethical  writings  of  Mr.  G.  E. 
Moore. 

I  have  drawn  to  some  extent  in  the  following  pages  upon 
articles  published  at  various  times  recently  in  the  Philo- 
sophical Review.  The  analysis  has  however  been  sharp- 
ened at  a  good  many  points;  and  I  trust  the  argument 
has  been  made  more  convincing  by  being  brought  together 
in  a  connected  form. 


498392 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

PREFACE          

I.     THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS 1 

II.     THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE 19 

III.     ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"     .      .  52 
IV.     THE   OBJECTIVITY   OF    THE   MORAL   JUDG- 
MENT           89 

V.     RESPONSIBILITY  AND  FREEDOM    ....  99 

VI.     PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS 109 

VII.     THE  APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES  142 

VIII.     THE  VIRTUES.     THE  SUMMUM  BONUM    .       .  160 

IX.     RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE 178 


The   Theory  of    Ethics 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    NATURE    OF    GOODNESS 

A  Definition  of  Ethics. — A  very  cursory  survey  of  the 
ethical  experience  will  reveal  the  fact  that  there  are  two 
main  aspects,  or  differences  of  emphasis,  which  the  human 
concern  for  conduct  has  shown.  It  is  natural  that  men 
should  first  have  their  attention  called  explicitly  to  prob- 
lems of  conduct  when  they  are  interfered  with  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  doing  what  they  like  to  do,  and  that 
morality  therefore  should  connect  itself  in  the  first 
instance  with  the  special  sort  of  consciousness  that  goes 
with  pressure  placed  upon  desire.  "Being  good,"  so 
popular  opinion  still  inclines  to  hold,  is  thus  primarily  an 
affair  of  what  we  should  not  do,  a  matter  of  obeying  the 
negative  commandments;  and  it  is  often  felt  to  be  not 
incompatible  with  a  drab  and  anemic  character  such  as 
quite  definitely  offends  our  more  virile  taste.  And  even 
where  the  negative  emphasis  attains,  through  the  intensive 
cultivation  of  the  will,  a  high  degree  of  force  and  robust- 
ness— in  the  Stoic,  for  example,  with  his  relentless  self- 
control,  or  in  that  Puritan  spirit  which  overthrew  settled 
monarchies  and  conquered  the  wilderness — it  yet  is  too 
harsh  and  grim  to  excite  in  the  average  man  any  impulse 
to  emulation.  He  may  admire  it  from  a  distance  as  he 
might  some  titanic  display  of  the  forces  of  nature;  but 

1 


ft    i  A  ''\    THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

as  an  ideal  of  a  good  and  satisfying  life  it  will  seem  to 
him  almost  a  travesty. 

It  would  appear  accordingly  that  for  average  human 
nature  such  a  negative  emphasis  fails  to  justify  itself  for 
the  most  part  except  in  subordination  to  a  more  positive 
motive.  Restraint  and  negation  are  worth  their  price 
only  as  they  are  requirements  to  be  submitted  to  in  the 
search  for  fulness  of  life  and  satisfaction.  Here  ethics 
becomes  a  name,  not  now  for  the  claims  of  duty,  but  for 
the  interest  man  has  in  discovering  and  realizing  the 
ends  that  make  life  positively  worth  living.  It  is  this  posi- 
tive emphasis  that  will  be  presupposed  as  fundamental 
throughout  the  subsequent  pages.  So  understood,  the 
task  of  ethics  resolves  itself  into  a  single  supreme  inquiry 
to  which  all  others  are  subordinate :  What  is  the  nature  of 
human  good?  In  this  way,  it  becomes  unnecessary  to 
defend  at  length  the  value  of  ethics  as  a  science.  Its 
utility  is  bound  up  with  the  undoubted  fact  that  ends  are 
much  more  likely  to  be  attained  when  we  are  reflectively 
aware  of  what  their  nature  and  conditions  are.  A  man, 
says  Thoreau,  in  the  long  run  hits  only  what  he  aims  at. 
There  may  be  occasional  lucky  individuals  whom  nature 
has  set  on  a  straight  course ;  they  know  instinctively  what 
they  want,  and  suffer  from  no  apparent  temptation  to  be 
led  aside  into  bypaths.  But  these  are  exceptions;  the 
great  majority  of  men  are  forced  to  grope  more  or  less 
blindly  after  the  conditions  of  a  satisfying  life,  and  are 
even  fortunate  if  after  devious  wanderings  they  happen 
on  it  at  all.  It  is  to  reduce  to  some  extent  the  need  for 
blind  fumbling,  and  hit-or-miss  experiment,  that  intelli- 
gence comes  in.  Intelligence  does  not  indeed  supplant 
experiment  carried  on  under  rational  conditions.  One  of 
the  things  it  will  be  important  to  keep  in  mind  is  that 
human  good  is  seldom  to  be  come  at  just  by  thinking.  A 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  3 

man  cannot  sit  down  in  his  study  and  reach  authoritative 
conclusions  about  the  exact  nature  of  what  it  is  that  will 
satisfy  his  blanket  demand  for  a  good  life;  still  less  is  he 
able  to  settle  by  reflection  what  his  neighbor  needs  to  do 
for  his  satisfaction.  Some  ethical  theories  have  indeed 
implied  that  he  can  do  this.  Man,  they  have  held,  is 
equipped  with  an  authoritative  organ,  called  conscience, 
for  discovering  absolute  good ;  and  he  has  only  to  set  this 
in  operation  to  arrive  at  unquestionable  decisions.  From 
this  standpoint,  it  is  familiarly  assumed  that  one  need 
have  no  difficulty  in  determining  what  it  is  right  for  him 
to  do;  all  evil  conduct  has  its  source  merely  in  the  fact 
that  he  will  not  do  what  his  conscience  plainly  tells  him. 
But  this  is  to  misread  experience  badly.  Often  the  stress 
of  the  moral  situation  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  we  genu- 
inely do  not  know  what  is  the  good;  and  no  reflective 
scrutiny  of  the  facts  will  tell  us.  The  only  thing  then 
open  to  us  is  to  act  on  probabilities,  and  so  put  ourselves 
in  the  way  of  learning  more  than  we  at  present  see.  But 
we  can,  by  the  use  of  intelligence,  prevent  experiment  from 
being  purely  haphazard.  We  can  rule  out  certain  alter- 
natives, can  survey  the  situation  as  a  whole  to  see  that 
we  have  not  overlooked  important  considerations,  can 
form  such  hypothetical  combinations  of  the  elements 
involved  as  in  the  light  of  past  experience  and  present 
insight  seem  most  likely  to  offer  a  satisfactory  plan  of 
action.  And  ethics  may  be  defined  as  an  attempt  to  be 
forehanded  and  foresighted  on  a  large  scale,  and  to  lay 
down,  ahead  of  the  immediate  needs  of  conduct,  the  lines 
along  which  successful  living  is  likely  to  run. 

The  Good  and  "Goodness" — Before  however  turning 
to  the  main  issue  and  attempting  to  draw  up  a  statement 
of  the  character  attaching  to  the  good  or  genuinely  satis- 
fying life,  there  is  a  preliminary  and  less  practically  inter- 


4  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

esting  question  which  the  theorist  will  find  it  useful  to 
raise.  Instead  at  once  of  asking  what  is  the  good,  it  is 
desirable  to  consider  first  what  we  mean  by  "goodness." 
The  distinction,  though  it  may  not  be  immediately  appar- 
ent, is  not  difficult  to  see.  If  I  were  told  to  pick  out  all 
the  blue  objects  in  a  room,  I  should  have  no  trouble  in 
distinguishing  the  question,  What  objects  here  are  blue? 
from  the  question,  What  is  blueness?  And  in  some  sense 
I  must  have  the  means  of  answering  the  second  query 
before  I  can  start  in  on  the  first ;  if  I  do  not  already  know 
what  blue  is,  it  will  be  useless  to  ask  me  to  point  out  blue 
things.  In  the  same  way  I  could  hardly  undertake  to 
settle  what  things  in  particular  in  experience  are  to  be 
called  good,  unless  I  were  already  able  to  use  the  term 
goodness  understandingly.  So  that  the  first  problem 
logically  of  an  ethical  analysis  is  to  undertake  to  find  out 
what  we  mean  by  that  abstract  quality  "goodness"  which 
we  assign  to  certain  objects  when  we  call  them  good. 

In  the  case  of  blueness  there  is  no  difficulty  in  making 
clear  to  ourselves,  and  to  other  people,  what  we  mean  by 
the  term,  though  we  might  be  bothered  if  we  had  to  put  it 
in  the  form  of  a  verbal  definition.  The  quality  is  there 
so  conspicuously  in  every  instance  of  a  blue  object  that 
it  is  a  simple  matter  to  distinguish  it  from  its  surround- 
ings, and  tell  others  how  to  go  to  work  to  identify  it  by 
getting  the  same  experience.  But  goodness  presents  a 
more  troublesome  case.  We  do  not  find  goodness  in  the 
object  staring  us  in  the  face  as  blueness  does;  its  char- 
acter is  of  a  much  more  subtle  sort.  That  we  can  recognize 
it  is  of  course  to  be  assumed.  But  to  say  just  what  we 
understand  by  it  is  by  no  means  easy,  and  requires  a 
considerable  effort  of  analysis. 

We  may  then  note  by  way  of  introduction  a  few  exam- 
ples of  the  things  to  which  we  naturally  apply  the  adjec- 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  5 

tive  "good."  We  say  that  a  knife  is  a  good  knife  when  it 
cuts  well,  or  that  a  furnace  is  a  good  one  when  it  heats  the 
house  properly.  We  say,  This  dessert  is  very  good, 
meaning  that  we  like  its  taste ;  or,  It  is  good  to  get  home 
again,  after  a  tedious  journey.  We  may  say  that  this  is 
a  good  specimen  of  a  Boston  terrier,  or  of  Henry  James* 
early  manner,  meaning  that  it  approaches  some  ideal 
case  which  for  whatever  reason  we  take  as  a  standard. 
We  say,  again,  He  is  a  good  man,  or,  That  is  a  good  and 
noble  act,  where  we  find  that  to  insert  the  word  "morally" 
helps  to  bring  out  what  we  have  in  mind.  Illustrations 
could  of  course  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  but  these  will 
I  think  be  found  to  be  sufficiently  typical. 

It  needs  only  a  slight  examination  to  show  that  in  the 
above  examples  good  is  not  always  used  with  precisely 
the  same  meaning.  The  first  two  instances  are  the  most 
straightforward  and  unambiguous ;  here  good  evidently 
means  no  more  than,  "useful  for  a  specified  purpose." 
The  other  cases  however  refuse  to  reduce  themselves 
merely  to  the  status  of  means  appropriate  to  an  end. 
When  for  example  I  say  that  the  dessert  is  good,  I  do 
not  have  to  go  on  and  ask,  Good  for  what?  as  I  do  when 
speaking  of  the  knife  or  furnace;  indeed  if  I  try  to  ask 
this  question  I  discover  that  it  has  no  obvious  meaning. 
The  pleasant  taste  to  which  I  apply  the  word  does  not 
need  to  be  justified  as  a  means  to  something  further.  It 
is  just  good ;  and  if  anyone  saw  fit  to  deny  this,  and  to 
say  that  a  pleasant  flavor  was  no  better  than  a  nasty  one, 
I  should  consider  that  it  hardly  called  for  refutation.  I 
might  to  be  sure  mean  something  different  by  the  state- 
ment that  the  dessert  is  good;  it  might  also  be  good  for 
something — my  health  or  my  digestion.  But  except  in 
health-food  advertisements,  no  one  is  under  any  tempta- 
tion to  confuse  healthfulness  with  the  more  immediate  and 


6  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

essential  goodness  that  appeals  to  the  natural  appetite. 
And  even  if  we  intend  to  say  that  an  article  of  food  is 
good  for  the  health,  we  still  have  not  recommended  it  in 
the  least  unless  we  can  assume  that  health  too  is  good; 
and  health  is  again  a  good  in  itself,  irrespective  of  its 
further  utility  for  something  else.  And  always,  we  shall 
find,  in  so  far  as  it  has  any  bearing  on  human  motivation 
and  action,  goodness  as  means  is  relative  to  an  end  which 
also  is  in  some  sense  good ;  sooner  or  later  we  are  bound 
to  come  to  what  to  our  natural  thought  needs  no  further 
justification  in  terms  of  utility,  but  is  good  in  its  own 
right.  And  it  is  with  the  goodness  of  ends  that  ethics  as 
an  ultimate  inquiry  has  to  do.  Before  we  can  actually 
secure  the  good  we  must,  to  be  sure,  discover  also  the 
means  to  its  attainment ;  and  this  requires  a  scientific 
understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  world  in  which  we 
live  and  act.  But  first  we  have  to  be  clear  about  the  sort 
of  end  for  the  sake  of  which  the  means  are  to  be  selected. 
And  it  is  the  primary  business  of  ethics,  in  terms  of  prac- 
tice, to  help  us  make  sure  that  this  end  is  itself  good,  in 
the  more  ultimate  sense  of  the  word. 

We  have  then  to  determine  what  we  mean  by  goodness 
when  it  is  applied,  not  to  means,  but  to  ends  of  conduct. 
And  this  would  seem  to  make  irrelevant  also  the  meaning 
that  is  suggested  by  the  third  pair  of  examples.  It  might 
indeed  be  proper  in  ethics  to  speak  of  the  good  man  as  one 
who  approximates  to  a  certain  standard  of  goodness ;  but 
the  important  question  would  still  remain  unsettled.  We 
have  made  no  real  progress  until  we  know  what  constitutes 
the  standard ;  to  say  that  a  thing  is  good  when  it  agrees 
with  a  standard  of  goodness  is  no  more  than  to  say  that 
a  thing  is  good  when  it  is  good.  It  perhaps  is  also  possible 
tha£  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  typical  human  being,  and 
that  the  good  man  is  constituted  such  by  exemplifying 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  7 

this  type ;  conformity  to  type  may  be  in  itself  a  good,  and 
even,  conceivably,  the  only  good.  But  it  is  not  self- 
evidently  so,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  when  the  prop- 
osition is  put  to  us  it  immediately  calls  for  proof.  And 
it  is  in  any  case  only  an  hypothesis  about  the  nature  of 
"what  is  good,"  and  hot  a  definition  of  the  quality  of 
goodness  as  such. 

There  is  one  further  point  of  special  importance  for 
the  ethical  situation  which  comes  out  when  we  turn  to  the 
final  set  of  cases.  Just  what  is  meant  by  the  term  "moral" 
is  still  of  course  to  be  determined.  But  at  any  rate  this 
much  appears  to  be  involved,  that  any  good  deserving 
such  a  title  is  something  that  is  really  good,  something 
that  justifies  itself  as  good  under  scrutiny,  that  has  more 
than  a  merely  transient  or  partial  value,  and  that  imposes 
on  us,  therefore,  a  certain  obligation  to  pursue  it.  The 
distinction  here  is  one  which  it  will  be  found  very  neces- 
sary to  keep  in  mind.  There  is  no  doubt  that  we  are 
constantly  being  called  upon  to  make  a  difference  between 
things  all  of  which  we  feel  in  a  sense  can  be  described  by 
the  adjective  good,  while  yet  some  of  them  are  not  worth 
what  they  cost.  An  article  of  food  or  drink  may  "taste 
good,"  at  the  same  time  that  we  disapprove  indulgence 
in  it.  This  is  an  altogether  different  case,  it  will  be 
noticed,  from  the  one  where  we  are  wholly  mistaken  in  our 
use  of  the  term.  I  may  think  that  something  is  good  to 
the  taste  when  it  really  turns  out  not  to  be  palatable  at 
all ;  I  attribute  to  it,  that  is,  a  quality  which  I  find  it  does 
not  actually  possess.  But  in  the  instance  we  are  consid- 
ering, this  is  not  the  fact.  The  quality  in  some  sense  does 
belong ;  the  taste  of  the  thing  really  is  good ;  and  except 
for  other  and  complicating  reasons  I  should  not  hesitate 
to  enjoy  it.  And  consequently  we  ought  not  to  say,  too 
literally,  that  we  are  mistaken  in  supposing  it  good,  or 


8  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

that  it  is  good  only  in  appearance.  Rather,  there  are  two 
shades  of  meaning  involved,  and  it  is  really  good  in  the 
first  and  simpler,  but  not  in  the  second  and  more  sophis- 
ticated sense. 

It  follows  that  if  we  are  to  clear  up  the  meaning  of  the 
term,  we  must  start  with  the  more  original  and  compre- 
hensive usage.  It  is  not  wholly  easy  to  do  this.  The 
word  good  has  been  so  commonly  appropriated  for  moral 
purposes  that  we  are  continually  under  a  temptation  to 
import  this  moral  connotation  where  it  does  not  really 
belong.  But  the  very  possibility  of  adding  a  descriptive 
adjective  shows  that  a  difference  is  involved;  before  a 
thing  can  be  morally  good  it  must  already  be  good,  just 
as  before  a  man  can  be  an  educated  negro  he  must  be  a 
negro.  And  it  is  evident  that  we  may  as  a  matter  of  fact 
call  a  thing  good  when  no  moral  approval  is  involved. 
Even  where  the  possibility  of  a  moral  life  is  lacking,  as 
in  the  lower  animals,  or  in  very  young  children,  we  still 
look  with  indulgence  upon  their  satisfactions,  and  do  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  these  better  than  painful  experi- 
ences would  be,  or  than  experience  not  affectively  toned  at 
all.  Art,  again,  while  it  may  become  a  moral  issue,  is 
under  no  necessity  of  doing  so;  yet  no  one  would  refuse 
to  admit  that  aesthetic  pleasure  is  a  good,  though  it  may 
not  carry  with  it  any  immediate  "duty." 

If,  then,  we  look  away  from  those  uses  of  the  word  that 
attempt  to  give  it  a  moral  or  an  absolute  standing,  and 
take  it  in  its  comprehensive  sense,  is  there  any  way  to 
describe  the  meaning  it  conveys?  When  we  examine  the 
various  things  we  are  inclined  to  call  good,  can  we  dis- 
cover some  common  characteristic  which  the  use  of  the 
term  involves,  identifiable  with  their  goodness? 

The  Analysis  of  Goodness. — The  first  point  here  to 
notice  is,  that  goodness  as  such  can  be  distinguished  from 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  9 

any  particular  character,  capable  of  being  described  in 
terms  other  than  goodness  itself,  which  conceivably  we 
may  discover  as  belonging  to  an  object  in  its  own  right. 
To  begin  with,  if  any  such  identity  of  meaning  existed, 
it  would  be  hard  to  understand  how  the  great  variety  of 
opinion  could  ever  have  arisen  about  the  content  of  the 
good.  Suppose  I  take  *uiy  specific  property  of  things 
whatsoever,  and  try  to  identify  this  with  their  goodness — 
their  pleasurableness  perhaps,  or  their  beauty,  or  their 
rationality,  or  their  perfection ;  so  that  a  bare  recognition 
of  its  presence  is  a  recognition  that  the  object  also  is 
good.  But  now  if  the  two  words — pleasurableness,  we  will 
say,  and  goodness — are  synon3^ms,  no  question  could  pos- 
sibly arise  in  our  minds  about  the  truth  of  the  judgment, 
"pleasure  is  the  only  good."  The  moment  we  realized 
what  pleasure  meant,  we  should  see  that  also  it  consti- 
tuted everything  we  mean  by  goodness,  and  the  truth  of 
the  proposition  would  be  self-evident.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact  no  proposition  of  this  sort  meets  instant  acceptance, 
and  none  has  ever  been  proposed  which  commanded  the 
assent  of  all  philosophers.  It  is  not  at  all  impossible, 
indeed,  that  we  may  in  the  end  find  something  common  to 
all  good  things,  whose  presence  is  necessary  to  make  them 
good.  But  if  so,  we  can  at  best  only  justify  this  by  an 
empirical  discovery  that  nothing  which  is  lacking  in  the 
quality  does  actually  elicit  the  judgment  of  goodness,  and 
not  by  the  mere  inspection  of  the  quality  itself ;  so  far  as 
this  last  is  concerned,  the  same  logical  objection  still 
holds.  We  may  maintain  with  much  assurance  that  pleas- 
ure is  good,  or  even  that  it  is  the  only  good.  But  if 
pleasurableness  signifies  the  same  thing  as  goodness,  one 
should  be  able  to  substitute  it  for  the  latter  word.  And 
then  "pleasurableness  is  good"  would  mean  no  more  than, 
"pleasurableness  is  pleasurable" ;  whereas  the  first  state- 


10  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

ment  evidently  intends  to  add  something  new  and  dis- 
tinctive. 

If  we  accept  the  conclusion  of  the  preceding  paragraph, 
there  remain  certain  alternative  possibilities.  It  is  still 
conceivable  that  goodness  may  be  an  immediate  quality 
of  objects  in  their  own  right,  provided  we  take  it  as  a 
quality  which  is  ultimate  and  unanalyzable,  which  has  no 
need  to  look  beyond  itself  for  its  definition,  and  concern- 
ing which,  therefore,  we  can  only  say  that  "goodness  is 
goodness."  Historically  this  answer  has  been  implied 
from  time  to  time  in  intellectualistic  theories  of  ethics ; 
and  in  recent  years  it  has  shown  a  tendency  to  be  received 
into  favor,  especially  through  the  influence  of  Mr.  G.  E. 
Moore.  And  it  possesses  at  least  one  apparent  merit,  in 
that  it  enables  us  to  affirm  without  reservation  the  objec- 
tive character  of  goodness,  and  its  independence  of  private 
feelings  and  opinions.  Nevertheless  it  has  an  undeniable 
look  of  paradox.  I  can  understand  well  enough  what  is 
meant  by  an  ultimate  and  unanalyzable  quality.  Sense 
qualities  are  such;  when  I  am  called  upon  to  define  the 
meaning  of  yellowness,  for  example,  all  I  can  say  is  that 
yellow  is  yellow.  So  again  in  the  case  of  a  relationship. 
I  know  what  I  mean  by  "difference";  it  is  just  difference, 
and  nothing  more.  But  goodness,  for  the  theory  in  ques- 
tion, is  not  held  to  be  a  relationship;  it  is  analogous 
rather  to  a  sense  quality.  And  with  Hume,  I  find  it 
extremely  perplexing  to  be  called  upon  to  allow  a  qualita- 
tive content  for  which  there  is  in  no  sense  that  is  intelli- 
gible to  me  an  original  impression;  when  I  try  to  set  the 
notion  clearly  before  my  mind,  it  appears  to  me  very 
doubtful  whether  I  am  really  thinking  about  anything  in 
particular  at  all,  and  may  not  be  only  using  words.  If 
there  is  no  other  recourse  it  may  seem  best  to  waive  this 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  11 

doubt;  but  it  suggests  the  desirability  of  trying  another 
alternative  first. 

This  second  alternative  is,  that  goodness  is  no  specific 
quality  inherent  in  an  object,  but  the  outcome  of  some 
distinctive  attitude  which  we  adopt  toward  such  a  quality. 
And  this  is  the  thesis  which  it  is  here  proposed  to  defend. 
First  however  there  is  one  possible  interpretation  it  may 
bear- — a  very  natural  interpretation  and  one  that  is 
familiar  in  ethical  theory — which  will  need  to  be  set  aside. 
This  is  the  notion  that  the  goodness  of  anything  consists 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  an  object  of  desire.  The  considera- 
tion of  this  new  theory  is  complicated  somewhat  by  reason 
of  certain  ambiguities  to  which  it  lends  itself.  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  it  seems  difficult  to  deny  that  nothing  does 
actually  exist  that  is  recognized  as  good  by  us  which  is 
not  in  some  relation  to  desire.  That  which  will  satisfy 
desire  or  further  interest — here  we  have  something  which 
as  a  matter  of  fact  looks  very  much  indeed  as  if  it  were 
common  to  all  cases  alike  of  goodness  or  of  value.  It  has 
even  been  maintained  at  times  that  just  this  bare  relation- 
ship which  is  involved  in  the  fulfillment  of  interest  is  itself 
identically  the  meaning  of  value.  This  however  is  to 
confuse  the  two  meanings  of  goodness  which  we  started 
out  by  distinguishing ;  the  relation  of  fulfillment  is  merely 
the  instrumental  conception  of  value  again,  and  leaves 
the  problem  of  intrinsic  value  still  untouched.  In  point  of 
fact  it  is  clearly  not  desire  itself,  or  the  mere  presence  of 
biological  response,  that  will  provide  a  solution  for  this 
latter  problem.  In  the  biological  sense  satisfaction  of 
desire  may  be,  as  indeed  I  think  it  is,  the  cause  of  good- 
ness ;  it  may  represent  the  mechanism  which  makes  the 
sense  of  value  possible.  But  it  is  not  normally  the  object, 
even,  to  which  we  apply  the  adjective  good,  much  less 


12  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  felt  nature  of  goodness  itself.  The  mere  recognition 
of  a  biological  adjustment  would  leave  me  cold  were  it  not 
for  the  feeling  element  which  desire  also  presupposes ;  and 
this  is  something  other  than  an  act,  or  than  a  bare  rela- 
tionship. 

And  even  when  we  turn  from  desire  itself  to  its  object 
again,  the  definition  of  goodness  as  that  which  satisfies 
desire  has  still  to  meet  the  same  objection  that  was  seen 
to  be  fatal  in  the  case  of  pleasure ;  relation  to  desire  does 
not,  any  more  than  relation  to  pleasure,  constitute  what 
we  mean  by  goodness,  even  though  it  may  be  necessary  to 
the  production  of  goodness.  We  may  say  intelligibly 
that  we  want  something  because  it  is  good,  or,  in  another 
sense,  that  it  is  good  because  we  want  it ;  but  the  "because" 
which  connects  the  two  statements  shows  that  we  naturally 
suppose  them  to  express  a  difference  of  meaning.  And 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  the 
assertion,  "what  I  desire  is  good,"  is  intended  to  add  some- 
thing to  the  tautologous  assertion,  "what  I  desire  is 
desired."  So,  again,  we  can  hardly  refuse  to  admit  that 
desires  are  sometimes  judged  not  to  be  good;  and  this 
would  be  difficult  to  understand,  were  goodness  and  rela- 
tion to  desire  synonymous. 

But  now  there  is  a  second  attitude  which  also  we  may 
adopt  toward  objects,  and  which  possesses  at  the  start 
a  definite  advantage  over  the  attitude  of  desire,  in  that 
it  takes  account  of  a  fact  about  the  value  judgment  which 
the  previous  hypothesis  tends  to  overlook.  This  is  the 
fact  that  the  assigning  of  goodness,  or  value,  is  primarily 
a  judgment,  an  act  of  contemplative  recognition,  and  not 
a  practical  attitude  of  wanting  something  or  of  aiming 
at  it.  And  it  is  possible  that  this  act  of  reflective  con- 
templation may  occur  under  conditions  which  add  some- 
thing to  the  purely  intellectual  perception  of  the  object 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  13 

and  its  inherent  qualities.  Let  us  accordingly  turn  back 
to  the  earlier  situation  from  this  new  standpoint.  It  has 
appeared  already  that  while  things  which  we  call  good 
may  have  a  quality  in  their  own  right  on  which  judgment 
is  pronounced,  this  quality  cannot  itself  be  made  synony- 
mous with  goodness.  The  fact  which  is  good — pleasure, 
or  perfection,  or  anything  you  please — must  first  be 
known  for  what  it  is  before  we  go  on  to  speak  of  its  good- 
ness; whether  or  not  pleasure  is  good,  at  any  rate  there 
can  be  no  possible  doubt  that  pleasure  is  pleasurable. 
But  in  order  to  bring  in  the  word  "good"  it  is  not  enough 
that  we  should  merely  have  pleasure,  or  that  we  should 
judge  pleasure  to  be  the  particular  sort  of  thing  it  is. 
We  need  to  go  on  and  pass  some  further  judgment  about 
it.  And  this  logical  demand  is  verified  when  we  turn  to 
the  actual  facts  of  the  value  judgment.  For  when  I 
pronounce  the  judgment  about  an  object,  This  is  good, 
I  am  not  for  the  moment  occupied  merely  with  enjoying  it. 
I  am  standing  off  and  looking  at  it  reflectively,  in  such  a 
fashion  that  the  quality  which  now  engages  my  attention 
calls  forth  in  me  a  secondary  attitude  of  intellectual  favor 
or  approval,  which  issues  in  a  new  judgment  with  a  pecul- 
iar character  of  its  own. 

The  source  of  the  recognition  of  goodness  would  thus 
appear  to  lie,  not  in  any  character  which  an  object  pos- 
sesses in  the  original  experience  in  which  we  come  in  con- 
tact with  it,  but  in  its  ability  to  make  a  favorable  impres- 
sion in  some  subsequent  thought  about  it.  And  if  this 
is  so,  a  determination  of  what  is  involved  in  "approval" 
will  tell  us  what  we  mean  by  the  goodness  of  anything, 
although  of  course  we  shall  not  as  yet  have  made  clear 
what  kinds  of  things  are  good.  To  avoid  misleading  asso- 
ciations, attention  should  again  be  called  here  to  the  need 
of  distinguishing  two  shades  of  meaning.  Frequently 


14  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

when  we  say  that  we  approve  of  something,  we  mean  that 
it  calls  forth  our  distinctively  moral  approval.  Thus  if  I 
remark  that,  while  approving  the  better,  I  nevertheless 
follow  the  worse,  this  is  an  instance  of  the  use  of  the 
word  with  such  a  moral  connotation.  There  is  however, 
as  in  the  case  of  goodness,  a  more  primary  sense  that  it 
may  bear  which  does  not  presuppose  any  moral  standard. 
In  this  simpler  meaning,  I  "approve"  whenever  the  idea 
of  the  thing  attracts  me,  or  in  so  far  as  my  thought  of  it 
is  pleasant.  And  it  is  in  this  broader  sense  alone  that  I 
am  now  using  the  term ;  I  shall  mean  by  approval  a  state 
of  mind  in  which  the  thought  of  anything  calls  forth  in 
me  a  feeling  of  pleasure. 

The  Definition  of  Goodness. — The  object  which  gives 
rise  to  this  reflective  feeling,  whatever  it  may  be,  I  shall 
understand  in  so  far  possesses  "goodness."  I  believe  that 
a  little  consideration  will  show  that  this  is  what  we  do 
really  mean  by  goodness.  If  a  thing  summons  up  in  me, 
when  I  contemplate  it  in  idea,  no  glow  of  pleasurable 
feeling,  I  shall  have  the  greatest  difficulty  in  understand- 
ing, or  even  tolerating,  the  claim  that  it  is  a  "good" 
object,  or  that  it  has  "value."  And  this  will  constitute 
therefore  the  first  step  in  the  analysis.  A  thing  is  recog- 
nized as  possessing  goodness,  not  in  terms  of  some  quality 
of  the  immediate  experience  in  which  it  figures,  but  in  so 
far  as  it  is  fitted  to  call  forth  in  our  mind  the  judgment  of 
approval,  or  in  so  far  as  we  contemplate  or  think  of  it 
with  pleasure.  Since  the  appreciation  of  value  starts 
from  a  reflective  situation  and  involves  the  recognition  of 
an  object,  it  is  already  an  implicit  judgment,  in  the  sense 
in  which  any  perceptual  experience  is  a  judgment.  It 
differs  from  perception  only  through  the  fact  that  the 
object  is  now  felt  to  have  a  new  quality — a  value  quality — 
through  the  projection  into  it  of  a  tang  or  flavor  whose 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  15 

source  lies  in  the  feeling  by  which  the  thought  experience 
is  accompanied.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  or  exceptional 
in  this  immediate  and  instinctive  objectification  of  qual- 
ities that  primarily  are  embedded  in  the  experiencing 
itself.  Thus  color  or  taste,  as  they  come  home  directly 
to  awareness,  are  characters  of  sensation,  which  never- 
theless are  felt  by  us  to  be  actual  qualities  of  the  object. 
A  still  nearer  analogy  is  the  closely  related  aesthetic 
experience,  where  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  suppose  that 
a  particular  sort  of  feeling  quality  helps  to  constitute 
what  we  call  the  objective  fact  of  "beauty." 

The  judgment  "this  is  good,"  accordingly,  is  nothing 
but  an  explicit  translation  into  words  of  such  a  "felt" 
judgment  of  value,  as  "this  object  is  round"  is  the 
explicit  formulation  of  what  already  is  involved  in  per- 
ception. It  may  very  well  be,  of  course,  that  later  reflec- 
tion will  reveal  the  need  for  revising  in  some  degree  our 
primitive  understanding  of  the  value  concept,  just  as 
many  people  have  come  to  believe  that  color  is  not  really 
in  the  object,  and  that  accordingly  the  "objectivity"  of 
color  ought  only  to  mean  the  power  of  the  object  to 
produce  color  feeling  in  us.  But  if  objective  goodness 
actually,  as  might  seem  to  be  the  case,  turns  into  a  rela- 
tion between  the  object  and  our  capacity  to  feel,  this  is 
still  not  what  it  seems  to  be  in  our  first  natural  response 
to  it;  we  do  not  primarily  envisage  it  as  a  relation,  but 
as  a  quality. 

The  statement,  "pleasure  is  good,"  it  thus  appears, 
goes  beyond  the  statement,  "pleasure  is  pleasant,"  in 
that  it  adds  to  the  quality  of  pleasantness  recognized  as 
the  essence  of  the  experience  itself  another  fact,  namely, 
that  it  arouses  pleasant  or  approving  thoughts.  When 
I  say  that  pleasure — or  any  other  substitute  that  may  be 
proposed — is  good,  I  am  not,  in  the  first  instance,  to  be 


16  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

understood  as  meaning  that  pleasure  is  a  definition  of 
good,  but  that  pleasure  is  a  case  of  good.  The  further 
meaning  will  then  be  that,  over  and  above  its  pleasantness, 
it  is  the  object  of  a  judgment  of  approval.  We  have  no 
disposition  to  say  in  turn  that  the  approval  is  good,  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  say  that  pleasure  is  good.  We  do 
not  for  the  moment  think  of  the  approval  or  its  pleasant- 
ness at  all.  What  we  think  of  as  good  is  the  original 
pleasantness,  and  we  are  able  to  do  so  only  because  we  are 
in  a  certain  attitude  of  mind  to  it  which  is  not  its  own 
object  but  the  object  of  a  subsequent  thought;  and  this 
last  is  not  itself  a  case  of  value  judgment,  but  one  of 
plain  matter  of  fact. 

For  a  real  definition,  now,  we  must  turn  the  sentence 
around,  and  make  "good"  its  subject.  Good  will  then  be 
defined,  not  as  some  particular  object  of  approval,  or  as 
our  approval  of  it,  but  as  anything  we  approve — the 
abstract  character,  that  is,  of  calling  forth  approval. 
And  in  this  way  we  escape,  it  seems  to  me,  the  logical 
objections  that  have  been  brought  against  other  defini- 
tions of  goodness.  "Is  this  good?"  Mr.  Moore  for  exam- 
ple argues  in  defending  the  thesis  that  goodness  is  inde- 
finable, "is  a  different  state  of  mind  from,  'Is  this  pleas- 
ant, or  desired,  or  approved?"  Of  the  first  two  terms 
I  have  just  been  maintaining  that  this  is  true.  "Is  this 
good?"  is  a  different  state  of  mind  from,  "Is  this  pleasant 
or  desired?"  So  in  both  cases,  also,  though  I  may  hold 
that  I  should  never  make  the  judgment  apart  from  such 
a  quality  in  the  object,  it  is  not  in  every  case  that  the 
presence  of  the  quality  calls  forth  the  judgment ;  and 
this  again  gives  point  to  the  distinction  between  the  two 
forms  of  question. 

But  I  cannot  feel  that,  as  I  have  been  defining  the 
word,  "approval"  stands  on  the  same  footing.  When  I 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS  17 

ask  what  I  mean  by  calling  a  thing  good,  other  than  this 
fact  of  its  ability  to  constrain  my  approving  judgment,  I 
am  unable  to  discover  any  answer.  I  may  desire  a  thing 
and  at  the  same  moment  refuse  to  call  it  good;  but  I  do 
not  see  how  I  can  approve  a  thing — find  the  thought  of  it 
agreeable — and  at  the  same  moment  refuse  to  call  it 
good.  There  is  indeed  still  a  possible  meaning  to  the 
question,  "Is  this  thing  which  I  approve  really  good?" 
But  it  is  a  different  meaning,  and,  I  think,  not  a  relevant 
one.  The  meaning  is :  On  continued  reflection  and  further 
experience  shall  I  find  it  retaining  my  approval?  But 
this  only  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  my  judgments 
of  good,  like  my  judgments  of  truth,  are  not  infallible; 
they  may  need  to  be  corrected.  I  could  not  correct  them 
however  if  I  did  not  know  in  terms  of  my  present  attitude 
of  assent  what  good  means.  The  very  question  implies 
that  so  long  as  I  approve  a  thing,  for  me  it  is  good ;  and 
if  the  name  ever  ceases  to  apply  it  will  be  because  my 
attitude  has  changed. 

It  may  be  worth  while  repeating  that  when  I  declare 
that  goodness  is  the  quality  of  exciting  approval,  I  do 
not  intend  to  say  that  the  meaning  of  good  can  be  reduced 
to  a  particular  fact  of  approval.  Such  a  fact  is  a 
condition  of  goodness,  but  it  is  not  its  content.  I  cannot 
of  course  expect  to  define  goodness  except  by  glancing 
back  at  actual  value  judgments;  and  when  I  do  this  I 
discover,  as  I  think,  that  they  did  involve  approval.  But 
in  defining  good  in  terms  of  approval  I  am  not  identifying 
it  with  a  particular  psychological  feeling  of  approval ;  I 
am  defining  it  through  the  abstract  content  I  find  in 
the  approval  situation.  Once  distinguish  this  abstract 
intellectual  content  from  the  psychological  existence  of 
a  particular  judging  experience,  and  it  appears  to  me 
that  we  can  say,  indeed  are  bound  to  say,  that  the  general 


18  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

notion  of  good  cannot  be  separated  from  the  notion  of 
approval,  though  it  can  be  distinguished  from  a  partic- 
ular case  of  approval,  about  which  last  I  intend  to  pass 
no  judgment  at  all.  It  is  true  that  the  definition  does 
not  reproduce  the  actual  felt  sense  of  value,  which  is 
always  directed  towards  particulars.  It  is  something 
which  I  discover  by  a  later  analysis,  instead  of  its  being 
present  to  the  intellectual  consciousness  in  the  original 
act.  But  then  no  definition  is  ever  identical  with  its 
object. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    GOOD    AND    PLEASURE 

Pleasure  the  Criterion  of  the  Good. — The  outcome  of 
the  preceding  chapter  has  been  that  goodness  is  a  quality 
which  makes  its  appearance  only  in  a  secondary  or  reflec- 
tive situation,  and  that  it  is  dependent  on  a  judgment  of 
approval.  This  however  leaves  many  questions  still  to 
be  considered.  What,  we  want  in  particular  to  know,  is 
the  sort  of  thing  which  is  capable  thus  of  calling  forth 
our  approval,  and  to  which  therefore  the  term  goodness 
will  apply?  Again,  why  should  we  approve  it,  or  think 
of  it  with  pleasure?  In  order  to  find  an  answer  to  these 
and  other  queries  we  need  to  start  upon  a  new  stage  in 
the  analysis. 

If  we  undertake  to  ask  ourselves  what  is  the  content 
of  that  to  which  is  applied  the  term  good — not,  it  is  to  be 
kept  in  mind,  absolute  and  final  good,  but  the  thing  that 
has  the  root  of  goodness  in  it  so  as  to  deserve  the  title 
under  certain  circumstances  at  least  and  from  some  pos- 
sible point  of  view — we  are  met  first  by  the  obvious  fact 
that  the  things  which  on  one  occasion  or  another  we  call 
good  are  practically  innumerable.  Health,  holidays, 
diamonds,  fame,  strawberries,  virtue,  courage,  beauty, 
warmth  and  coolness,  poetry  and  push-pin — the  list  might 
go  on  indefinitely.  The  only  chance  of  answering  the 
question  therefore  in  a  way  to  satisfy  the  philosophic 
instinct  would  be  to  discover  some  quality  or  qualities 
common  to  all  the  list.  Is  there  any  such  quality  to  be 
detected? 

The  reply  which  in  company  with  a  very  considerable 

19 


20  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

number  of  ethical  theorists  of  the  past  and  present  I 
shall  make  to  this,  is  one  which  I  should  find  it  impossible 
to  prove  according  to  the  strict  demands  of  logic.  It 
depends  wholly  upon  an  appeal  to  our  actual  judgments 
of  approval,  and  upon  the  claim  that,  when  we  examine 
these,  we  do  find  that  the  quality  never  is  absent  if  the 
judgment  is  to  be  capable  of  standing  up  under  scrutiny. 
One  might  deny  if  he  wanted  to  that  the  connection  is  a 
necessary  one ;  and  there  is  no  way  that  I  can  see  to  show 
conclusively  that  he  might  not  be  right  about  it.  But  he 
could  be  challenged  to  present  a  case  in  which  the  attri- 
bute was  lacking;  and  if  every  case  proposed  could  be 
shown  to  involve  the  quality  on  penalty  of  failing  other- 
wise to  call  forth  in  us  the  reaction  which  we  call  the 
feeling  of  its  goodness,  the  thesis  would  be  established  in 
the  only  way  in  which  it  is  conceivable  that  it  could  be 
established. 

The  thesis  itself  is,  that  any  sort  of  fact  approved  as 
good  will  be  found  to  be  of  the  sort  that  involves  the 
feeling  of  pleasure  or  satisfaction  in  experience.  I  do 
not  now  mean  that  when  we  think  of  it  we  find  pleasure 
in  the  thought,  because  this  is  what  I  have  already  iden- 
tified with  the  feeling  of  approval  itself.  I  mean  that 
in  its  original  presence  also  it  is  a  pleasurable  experience. 
I  think  with  pleasure  of  the  taste  of  an  apple,  and  call 
it  good,  because  the  taste  itself  is  pleasant.  I  reflect  upon 
poetry  and  call  it  good  because,  prior  to  reflection,  poetry 
gives  me  pleasure ;  and  if  it  were  not  a  source  of  pleasure 
it  would  no  more  seem  good  to  me  than  a  laundry  list  or 
a  tailor's  bill.  Virtue  itself  it  is  inconceivable  we  should 
pronounce  good  were  it  not  that  the  life  of  virtue  is  a 
life  that  brings  satisfaction  in  its  train;  conceive  the 
virtuous  life  as  occasioning  no  slightest  glow  of  feeling 
to  oneself  or  others,  directly  or  indirectly,  and  it  becomes 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  21 

impossible  to  convey  any  meaning  into  our  words  when 
we  speak  of  its  goodness. 

The  Psychology  of  Pleasure. — If  it  is  so  that  the 
quality  that  justifies  us  in  calling  anything  good,  in  this 
primitive  and  non-moralistic  sense  of  the  word,  is  its 
pleasurableness,  or  its  satisfying  character,  pleasure  evi- 
dently has  a  fundamental  part  to  play  in  the  theoretical 
understanding  of  the  ethical  situation ;  and  it  will  be  con- 
venient before  going  further  to  attempt  to  clear  up  its 
proper  theoretical  status,  as  otherwise  we  are  likely  to 
fall  into  various  confusions  of  thought.  And  first  it  is 
well  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  thesis  so  far  means 
just  what  it  says  and  no  more.  Commonly  in  the  history 
of  ethical  thought  "hedonism"  has  meant  something  in 
addition.  It  has  meant,  not  simply  that  pleasure  is  the 
particular  quality  that  justifies  us  in  calling  a  thing  good, 
but  that  pleasure  is  the  only  end  of  action,  the  sole  human 
motive,  the  one  thing  at  which  we  aim  and  which  induces 
us  to  put  forth  our  effort.  I  have  made  no  such  claim  as 
this.  Indeed  I  consider  the  claim  to  be  quite  inadmissible, 
and  contrary  to  obvious  facts.  Pleasure  I  have  only  held 
to  be  necessary  if  as  reasonable  beings  we  are  to  call  a 
thing  good,  not  if  we  are  to  act  with  reference  to  an  end. 
And  there  are  a  variety  of  familiar  facts  which  go  to 
show  that  action  does  not  have  to  wait  upon  a  reflective 
recognition  of  its  pleasurableness.  For  one  thing — and 
this  is  decisive  in  itself — if  it  did  depend  upon  this  we 
should  never  get  action  started  at  all.  If  no  one  ate 
until  he  knew  that  food  was  pleasant,  eating  would  soon 
become  a  lost  art.  Before  we  are  aware  that  an  experi- 
ence is  pleasant  we  must  have  had  the  experience;  and 
the  first  time  therefore,  at  any  rate,  something  other  than 
the  expectation  of  pleasure  must  move  us.  The  young 
chick  pecks  at  a  grain  of  corn  because  it  cannot  help 


22  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

itself,  not  because  it  is  a  devotee  of  pleasure.  After  we 
have  once  enjoyed  an  experience  the  memory  of  the  enjoy- 
ment is  not  without  its  effect  upon  our  future  action. 
But  even  if  pleasure  now  enters  into  the  situation,  it  is 
certainly  not  to  the  exclusion  of  the  mechanism  of  instinct 
which  started  the  act  off  in  the  first  place.  This  still  has 
to  be  there  and  play  its  part ;  and  the  mere  fact  that  we 
have  found  eating  pleasant  in  the  past  does  not  now 
induce  us  to  repeat  the  act  apart  from  present  hunger, 
any  more  than  the  thought  of  the  pleasure  that  as  infants 
we  took  in  a  rattle  now  sends  us  to  the  toy  shop. 

We  must  set  out  from  the  fact  then  that  the  original 
source  of  action,  or  of  conduct,  is  a  complex  interrelation 
of  instinctive  or  impulsive  tendencies  which  go  to  make 
up  our  concrete  nature.  And  this  carries  with  it  a  certain 
way  of  looking  at  the  fact  of  pleasure  from  which  ethical 
theory  also  will  have  to  start.  First,  and  beyond  any 
manner  of  doubt,  pleasure  cannot  be  taken  as  the  ultimate 
biological  fact,  but  is  somehow  to  be  explained  functionally 
— in  its  relation  that  is  to  the  active  process  of  behavior. 
And,  though  this  is  perhaps  slightly  more  debatable,  it 
seems  also  true  that  the  relationship  can  in  part  be 
defined  by  calling  pleasure  a  sign  that  the  more  ultimate 
end  is  being  attained,  an  indication  to  me  that  I  am  really 
on  the  right  road  to  the  satisfaction  of  my  needs.  Fol- 
lowing this  clue  then,  and  committing  ourselves  also  to 
the  common-sense  belief  that  we  as  human  beings  are  able 
to  attain  our  ends  more  intelligently  and  successfully  if 
we  know  wherein  they  consist,  we  are  led  tentatively  to 
describe  the  feeling  of  pleasure  as  a  sign  that  the  demands 
of  our  nature  are  being  met,  which  has  a  functional 
value  likewise  for  the  process  of  attainment,  not  only  in 
the  biological  sense  that  somehow  it  seems  to  swell  the 
flow  of  energy  available  for  the  act,  but  also  in  the — for 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  23 

ethical  purposes — more  important,  as  well  as  more  imme- 
diately verifiable  sense,  that  it  helps  us  in  the  conscious 
task  of  estimating  reflectively  the  relative  significance  of 
competing  ends  and  actions,  and  so  puts  us  in  the  way  of 
supplanting  mere  impulse  with  reasoned  and  intelligent 
conduct. 

The  Hedonistic  Argument. — However,  to  leave  the 
matter  here  would  hardly  be  doing  justice  to  the  hedon- 
istic argument.  There  is  a  rejoinder  the  hedonist  may 
make,  even  while  admitting  all  that  has  just  been  said. 
I  grant,  he  might  reply,  that  what  we  shall  find  pleasur- 
able is  in  the  end  determined  by  organic  needs  and 
impulses,  and  so  that,  on  a  purely  natural  or  animal 
basis,  our  deeds  are  ultimately  traceable  back  to  instinct 
as  a  predetermined  tendency  to  action.  But  because  this 
is  usually  the  source  and  ground  of  behavior  it  does  not 
follow  that  it  is  bound  to  be  the  motive,  if  by  this  we 
mean  an  end  consciously  selected  because  it  appeals  to  us 
as  good.  Man  differs  from  the  animals  just  because  he 
is  not  bound  down  mechanically  to  impulse.  Of  course 
he  cannot  break  free  from  impulse  in  the  sense  that  he  can 
arbitrarily  make  a  thing  seem  pleasurable  to  him  for 
which  he  has  no  constitutional  bent.  But  among  the 
impulses,  all  of  them  his,  which  stand  for  possible  lines  of 
action,  he  can  give  his  conscious  preference  to  certain  in 
particular  on  the  basis  of  their  recognized  goodness ;  and 
this  "goodness"  is  a  -feeling  rather  than  a  physical  or 
biological  fact.  Indeed  the  preceding  analysis  admits 
this.  So  long  as  pleasure  is  interpreted  in  purely  biologi- 
cal terms  as  an  intensification — or  any  other  qualification 
you  please — of  the  organic  process  of  directed  energy, 
it  is  to  be  sure,  by  definition,  no  more  than  a  subordinate 
aspect  of  an  end  describable  wholly  in  objective  language. 
But  when  it  becomes  a  conscious  sign,  capable  of  being 


24  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

utilized  by  intelligence,  it  takes  on  a  different  status.  As 
intelligent  and  ethical  beings  then,  it  is  goodness,  not 
biological  adjustment,  at  which  we  aim.  No  matter  what 
it  is  that  causally  determines  the  particular  thing  we 
shall  call  good,  what  we  really  hold  before  the  mind  in 
reflective  choice  is  just  the  good  itself;  and  if  what  is 
good  is  describable  in  terms  of  pleasure,  then  it  is  pleasure 
after  all  that  constitutes  conscious  motive  and  end. 

So  interpreted,  accordingly,  the  hedonistic  thesis  is, 
not  that  pleasure  is  the  only  goal  which  we  can  conceive 
ourselves  predisposed  to  attain — for  we  have  sufficiently 
seen  that  we  are  adapted  biologically  to  the  attainment 
of  ends  quite  independent  of  the  feeling  of  pleasure — but 
that  it  is  the  only  fact  which  a  reasonable  human  being 
can  set  before  himself  as  a  desirable  end,  really  worth  the 
trouble  of  attaining.  A  man  might  find  himself  pushed 
by  unconscious  forces  to  a  goal  from  which  he  withheld  his 
approval.  Thus  a  perfectly  sincere  pessimist  might,  by 
the  pure  "will  to  exist,"  be  held  to  a  life  which  he  reflec- 
tively condemned ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  very  few  pessimists 
commit  suicide.  But  this  would  offer  no  difficulty  to  the 
hedonist  provided  he  elected  to  maintain,  not  that  pleasure 
is  the  only  end  of  action,  but  that  it  is  the  only  end  with 
which  we  consciously  identify  ourselves,  and  intentionally 
and  with  self-approval  pursue. 

Nevertheless  it  still  is  possible  to  raise  the  question 
whether  this  really  means  after  all  that  pleasure  consti- 
tutes the  only  motive  for  action,  even  as  a  conscious  and 
"rational"  motive.  And  to  sharpen  the  issue,  it  is  first 
necessary  to  decide  what  we  are  going  to  mean  by  the 
word  "motive."  The  simplest  thing  would  be  to  suppose 
that  we  refer  to  nothing  more  than  the  particular  idea 
or  object  present  to  the  mind  before  we  act,  in  so  far  as 
this  is  something  that  attracts  us  and  draws  us  on.  But 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  25 

if  we  mean  this,  we  are  clearly  not  entitled  to  say  that 
pleasure  is  the  only  possible  motive.  While  we  may  hold 
before  ourselves  some  future  pleasure  explicitly  as  the 
object  of  our  efforts,  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  we 
should  do  so.  Indeed  we  do  it  relatively  seldom.  For  the 
most  part  I  am  not  thinking  of  my  feelings,  but  of  the 
acts  I  am  going  to  perform,  the  things  I  am  going  to  get, 
the  results  I  am  going  to  accomplish.  We  expect  a  man, 
setting  out  on  a  business  career,  to  take  keen  pleasure  in 
the  thought  of  building  up  a  large  enterprise,  making 
money,  acquiring  power  and  reputation  among  his  asso- 
ciates. But  these  are  all  objective  facts,  not  feelings; 
and  certainly  we  should  think  less  highly  of  him  if  all  the 
time  his  mind  were  filled  instead  with  the  pleasures  that 
money  will  buy,  or  with  anticipations  of  the  pleasurable 
emotions — pride  and  complacency — attending  upon  suc- 
cess. I  do  not  at  present  ask  why  this  is  so.  But  that 
for  the  most  part  we  are  aware,  in  healthy  motivation,  of 
the  objects  that  possess  goodness — or  that  produce 
pleasure — and  not  of  the  bare  pleasures  themselves,  seems 
a  clear  fact  of  experience ;  and  this  would  hardly  have 
the  effect  it  normally  does  upon  our  sense  of  ethical 
approval,  unless  the  difference  were  something  more  than 
just  a  verbal  one. 

But  the  hedonist  will  not  be  content  to  stop  with  this. 
Granted,  he  will  say,  that  an  idea  which  stands  for  a 
motive  in  the  mind  may  be  of  various  sorts,  the  further 
question  is,  Why  does  it  stand  thus,  and  what  is  the 
source  of  the  attraction  or  compulsion  which  it  exercises? 
And  if  we  attempt  to  answer  this  question,  it  will  appear 
to  him  that  we  are  brought  back  again  from  a  multiplicity 
of  motives  to  the  one  aspect  of  them  all — pleasure — that 
really  exerts  motive  power. 

The  Answer  to  Hedonism. — Here  lies  unquestionably 


26  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  strong  point  in  the  hedonistic  contention;  and  it 
cannot  be  entirely  set  aside  without  abandoning  the  thesis 
that  pleasurable  quality  is  the  source  of  the  judgment  of 
goodness.  Nevertheless  it  needs  to  be  stated  very  care- 
fully if  we  are  not  to  do  injustice  to  the  facts.  And  an 
accurate  statement  will  scarcely  be  in  terms  of  pleasure 
as  the  "motive."  At  least  this  would  make  it  necessary 
to  change  our  definition  of  a  motive,  and  to  think  of  it, 
not  as  the  thing  we  naturally  fix  upon  as  attractive  to 
us,  but  as  the  reason  why  this  thing  is  chosen  rather  than 
something  else.  We  have  already  seen,  however,  that 
this  cannot  intend  to  ask  for  the  ultimate  reason  why  the 
thing  is  pleasurable.  The  moment  we  ask  this,  we  are 
directed  back  of  feeling  altogether  to  that  basic  fact  of 
impulse,  lying  below  the  level  of  the  conscious  life,  on 
which  feeling  and  action  alike  depend.  And  if  we  try 
to  give  the  question  any  other  meaning,  we  are  likely  to 
discover  that  it  is  at  the  risk  of  confusing  again  two  dif- 
ferent situations  which  it  has  already  been  found  necessary 
to  distinguish. 

The  distinction  is  that  between  the  case  of  action  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  the  intellectual  process  of  judging 
the  relative  goodness  of  ends  on  the  other.  Primarily  a 
motive  is  a  motive  for  action;  and  in  the  active  situation 
we  do  not,  as  even  the  hedonist  will  admit,  ordinarily  think 
about  pleasures  at  all,  but  about  things,  acts,  ways  and 
means,  consequences.  A  large  share  of  our  lives  is  passed 
simply  in  doing  things,  more  or  less  pleasant,  under 
circumstances  where  our  ends  are  already  taken  for 
granted ;  and  here  at  any  rate  the  thoughts  that  motivate 
or  set  off  the  act  are  on  their  face  objective  terms.  But 
this  is  not  the  situation  which  the  hedonist  really  has  in 
mind  when  he  claims  that  we  always  aim  at  pleasure.  If 
it  is  suggested  to  him  that  things,  not  pleasures,  are  com- 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  27 

monly  before  the  mind  when  we  act,  what  indeed  he  replies 
is,  Well,  I  grant  that  we  seem  to  be  thinking  about  objects, 
but  the  real  motive  after  all  is  the  pleasure,  as  we  discover 
when  we  stop  to  think,  and  ask  ourselves  how  we  are  to 
justify  our  conduct  to  reflection.  In  other  words,  pleas- 
ure appears  as  the  motive  not  when  we  are  acting,  but 
when  we  "stop  to  think." 

But  the  act  of  reflection  upon  our  ends  and  of  coming 
to  a  decision  about  their  goodness  is  a  case  quite  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  presence  of  motivation  in  the  actual 
conduct  of  life.  In  the  former  case  we  are  indeed  think- 
ing about  pleasures;  but  why?  It  is  not  that  they  stand 
as  a  direct  motivation  to  action.  We  are  not  now  engaged 
in  doing,  but  in  thinking ;  we  are  trying  to  solve  the  intel- 
lectual problem,  What  really  is  the  good?  And  we  go 
about  this  by  bringing  before  the  mind,  not  the  motive 
for  action — for  as  every  act  alike  has  its  motive  this 
would  leave  all  on  exactly  the  same  plane — but  the 
test  by  which  a  good  end  is  distinguished  from  those  that 
do  not  evoke  the  judgment  of  approval.  And  since  pleas- 
ure is  the  test  or  sign  of  goodness,  when  we  are  engaged 
in  an  intellectual  inquiry  to  discover  to  what  things  good- 
ness really  attaches,  we  of  course  have  to  think  explicitly 
about  their  pleasurableness,  or  their  satisfying  character, 
as  the  only  means  of  separating  true  from  false  claimants. 
This  pleasure,  as  the  thing  consciously  before  the  mind, 
may  now  in  an  intelligible  sense  be  called  the  "reason  why" 
the  end  is  judged  good  by  us.  But  all  we  mean  is  that  it 
identifies  the  particular  quality  which  the  mind  picks  out 
as  justifying  approval  in  point  of  fact ;  it  neither  consti- 
tutes the  original  motive  in  consciousness  for  doing  the 
act,  nor  does  it  supplant  the  need  for  a  more  ultimate 
and  objectively  causal  explanation  of  why  the  quality 
gives  rise  to  approval. 


28  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

It  might  still  be  asked  why,  if  pleasurable  quality  is  in 
a  proper  sense  the  motive  of  my  choice — if  "it  is  what  I 
consciously  direct  my  attention  to,  that  is,  when  I  am 
engaged  in  judgments  of  preference — I  should  not  con- 
tinue to  call  it  the  motive  of  my  act ,  since  I  always  choose 
with  reference  to  a  resulting  action,  and  upon  the  result 
of  my  choice  the  act  depends.  And  there  perhaps  is  no 
compelling  reason,  apart  from  a  desire  for  precision  in 
language.  It  seems  difficult  to  deny  that,  in  a  sense,  when 
I  act  in  view  of  an  end  which  I  recognize  as  -desirable,  this 
character  of  desirableness  is  a  peculiarly  important  ingre- 
dient of  my  state  of  mind;  and  popularly  there  may  be 
no  objection  to  speaking  of  it  as  my  "motive."  But  for 
purposes  of  theoretical  analysis  this  will  be  found  to 
involve  us  everywhere  in  difficulties.  Accordingly  it  will 
be  safer  if  we  are  careful  to  keep  in  mind  that  the  pleas- 
ure which  makes  one  end  seem  desirable  rather  than 
another  presupposes  the  presence  already  of  concrete 
objects  related  to  human  desire  or  impulse,  and  if  we 
reserve  the  term  "motive"  therefore  for  this  total  object 
which  has  its  connection  with  action  rather  than  with 
choice,  and  which  possesses  pleasurableness  as  a  quality 
instead  of  being  itself  no  more  than  pleasant  feeling. 

The  same  result  emerges  if  we  approach  an  anlysis  of 
the  situation  from  a  slightly  different  angle.  One  reason 
will  appear  for  tSe  subtlety  of  the  distinctions  we  have 
had  to  draw  here,  when  we  note  that  there  are  three  quite 
separate  forms  of  pleasure  implicated,  with  no  very  clear- 
cut  differences  of  terminology  to  mark  them  off.  There  is 
the  pleasure  which  an  act  has  given  us  in  the  past,  the 
pleasure  we  expect  to  get  in  the  future,  and  the  present 
pleasure  we  enjoy  while  we  think  of  this  in  anticipation. 
And  all  of  these  play  roles  of  their  own  in  connection  with 
the  ethical  judgment,  which  it  is 'extremely  easy  to  con- 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  29 

fuse.  It  is  the  past  pleasure  which  the  traditional  hedon- 
ist kas  in  tke  first  instance  in  view.  This  is  what  the 
reflective  theorist,  engaged  not  in  the  active  practice  of 
the  ethical  life  but  in  examining  the  nature  of  his  con- 
cepts, is  pretty  sure  to  turn  his  attention  to  in  his  search 
for  the  content  of  the  good ;  I  know  a  thing  to  be  good, 
and  can  approve  my  judgment  to  others,  in  so  far  as, 
looking  back  upon  our  c«Mimon  experience,  I  am  able  to 
ji*int  to  the  verifying  presence  of  an  attendant  feeling 
•f  satisfaction.  It  is  in  this  academic  analysis  of  the 
past  that  pleasure  gets  marked  off  most  definitely  from 
its  source  and  conditions,  and  tends  to  engage  the  mind 
in  its  own  right. 

Such  past  pleasure  is,  however,  not  itself  a  motive. 
When  we  talk  about  pleasure  as  a  motive,  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  term  has  been  defined,  it  must  be  a  future  pleas- 
ure that  we  have  in  view ;  for  it  is  only  something  still  to 
come  that  can  furnish  an  incentive  to  action.  But  when 
pleasure  thus  becomes,  not  the  mere  object  of  an  imper- 
sonal analysis,  but  an  actual  element  in  conduct,  it  no 
longer  stands  by  itself,  normally,  as  a  disembodied  quality. 
That  which  has  a  personal  appeal  for  me  is  not  mere 
pleasure,  of  any  and  every  sort,  but  the  specific  objects 
and  activities  that  satisfy  my  concrete  nature.  And 
because  these  have  to  be  presupposed  before  I  can  get 
pleasure,  I  cannot  envisage  pleasure  by  itself  and  still 
find  it  exerting  its  appeal. 

Meanwhile  in  saying  that  a  thing  really  moves  us  only 
as  it  is  an  object  of  actual  desire  and  appreciation,  we 
are  pointed  also  to  the  third  form  of  pleasure — the  pres- 
ent pleasure  of  the  thought.  This  however  is  not  the 
motive  to  action,  but  the  content  of  approval,  or  of  the 
intellectual  recognition  of  goodness.  It  may  connect  it- 
self indeed  with  one  other  possible  way  of  defining  "mo- 


80  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

tive" — as  the  actual  causal  force  that  moves  to  action. 
And  it  is  often  useful  to  take  it  in  this  way,  and  to  say 
that  anger,  or  love,  or  jealousy,  with  its  hedonic  rein- 
forcement, is  the  motive  to  an  act.  But  this  at  any  rate 
is  to  turn  aside  from  the  peculiar  claims  of  hedonism.  And 
since  this  actual  motive  force  is  a  biological  fact,  underly- 
ing the  conscious  life,  it  can  in  general  be  of  little  use  for 
ethics,  however  essential  psychology  may  find  it.  For 
the  ethicist,  we  are  brought  back  again  to  the  conception 
of  a  motive  as  an  objective  ideal  content  which,  through 
its  connection  with  impulse,  represents  to  consciousness 
an  end  of  action. 

The  Source  of  the  Feeling  of  Approval. — It  is  time 
now  to  pay  some  attention  to  a  second  question  which  so 
far  has  been  left  unconsidered.  If  that  is  good  which 
gives  pleasure  when  we  think  of  it,  why  is  this  thought 
found  pleasurable?  What  is  the  cause  of  the  approval 
that  constitutes  goodness?  The  act  gives  pleasure,  we 
have  roughly  assumed,  because  it  calls  into  exercise  some 
impulse  or  capacity  of  human  nature ;  but  why  should  the 
contemplation  of  what  is  pleasurable  give  pleasure  also? 

To  such  a  question,  the  simplest  and  most  obvious 
answer  seems  a  sufficient  one.  If  we  are  already  attracted 
toward  an  object  in  the  sense  that  we  feel  the  impulse 
to  secure  it  as  a  means  of  satisfying  some  desire,  the 
pleasure  of  approval  would  be  a  sign  of  the  same  attrac- 
tive desire  in  an  intellectual  or  anticipatory  setting. 
Approval,  it  needs  once  more  to  be  noted,  is  not  identical 
empirically  with  desire.  Desire  also  involves  an  antici- 
pating thought  of  the  object,  and  may  be  attended 
by  pleasure,  though  it  may  equally  be  painful  if  the  object 
of  desire  is  too  far  out  of  reach ;  and  desire,  accordingly, 
will  usually  embody  an  inarticulate  sense  of  the  object's 
goodness.  This  is  the  source  of  the  common  confusion 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  31 

between  approval  and  desire.  But  desire  is  more  than 
approval.  It  is  an  active  experience  also,  in  which  we 
already  feel  ourselves  urged  forward  toward  attainment. 
And  we  find  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  it,  even  if  we 
cannot  entirely  separate  it,  from  the  contemplative  judg- 
ment of  an  object's  goodness  which  stops  short  with  an 
intellectual  pronouncement  about  it;  to  want  a  thing, 
and  to  declare  it  worth  wanting,  are  not  identical  experi- 
ences. But  it  is  also  a  natural  assumption  that  the  inner 
glow  of  feeling  which  makes  the  difference  between  a  genu- 
ine and  first-hand  sense  of  value  and  a  judgment  of  fact 
merely  intellectual  in  its  nature,  is  due  to  the  presence 
of  incipient  desire  such  as  the  object  thought  of  would 
actually  satisfy. 

And  this  suggests  the  need  of  giving  somewhat  greater 
precision  to  the  previous  thesis  that  pleasure  is  the  quality 
which  renders  an  object  good.  If,  the  reader  may  per- 
haps have  asked  himself,  the  sense  of  value  is  reducible  to 
pleasure  in  contemplation  due  to  the  presence  of  desire, 
and  if  it  is  granted,  both  that  a  past  pleasure  does  not 
as  such  arouse  any  feeling  at  all,  and  that  future  pleasure 
does  not  need  to  be  explicitly  a  part  of  the  object  which 
calls  forth  the  sense  of  goodness,  what  becomes  of  the 
claim  that  pleasure  is  the  essential  character  of  the  good? 
Does  it  not  seem  to  follow  that  something  other  than 
pleasure  may  have  goodness,  since  it  can  elicit  "approval"  ? 

I  have  not  however  anywhere  been  intending  to  assert 
that  the  recognition  of  pleasure  is  necessary  to  call  forth 
the  judgment  of  goodness.  The  thesis  has  been,  rather, 
that  only  when  we  can  point  to  pleasure  is  the  judgment 
of  value  felt  to  be  justified.  It  is  obviously  quite  possible 
that  I  may  have  a  value  judgment  which  turns  out  to  be 
mistaken;  what  I  thought  to  be  good  is  not  really  good. 
And  pleasure  is  necessary  as  a  quality  of  the  good  only 


32  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

in  the  sense  that  it  alone  serves  to  distinguish  true  judg- 
ments from  mistaken  ones.  I  look  forward,  we  will  say, 
with  pleasurable  anticipations  to  an  outing,  my  mind  very 
likely  dwelling  upon  purely  objective  circumstances;  and 
I  am  in  a  position,  in  consequence,  to  pass  a  value  judg- 
ment. But  I  recognize,  if  I  stop  to  think,  the  tentative 
character  of  this  judgment;  and  if  the  day  should  happen 
to  go  wrong  and  end  in  disappointment,  I  should  have  to 
say  that  it  had  turned  out  not  to  be  good  after  all.  The 
judgment,  in  other  words,  always  needs  to  be  verified ;  and 
it  is  verified,  not  by  the  mere  physical  act  that  expresses 
desire,  but  by  the  sense  of  satisfaction  which  accompanies 
the  act,  and  which  continues  and  completes  the  incipient 
or  prophetic  pleasure  already  present  in  the  thought. 
And  having  once  discovered  the  need  for  such  a  verifica- 
tion through  experience,  we  thereafter  use  pleasure  as  the 
necessary  intellectual  criterion  of  the  presence  of  good- 
ness; though  in  using  it  we  seldom  feel  toward  the  fact 
of  pleasure  by  itself  the  actual  sense  of  goodness  that 
attaches  to  desired  objects,  and  we  do  feel  value  in  many 
things  where  pleasure  is  for  the  moment  not  a  part  of 
the  intellectual  content  consciously  before  the  mind. 

Esthetic  Pleasure  and  Approval. — It  would  perhaps 
be  sufficient  to  leave  the  matter  here,  if  it  were  not  for 
one  other  fact  which  offers  a  certain  complication.  This 
is  the  fact  that,  describable  also  in  terms  of  "contempla- 
tion," and  equally  divorced  from  the  immediate  experience 
of  desire  and  action,  we  find  a  more  instinctive  and  emo- 
tional form  of  pleasurable  experience  of  a  peculiar  kind — 
the  so-called  aesthetic  pleasure.  And  it  might  seem  an 
alluring  theory  therefore  if  we  were  to  try  to  identify  the 
feeling  tone  distinctive  of  approval  with  that  special 
pleasure  which  belongs  to  the  contemplative  attitude  in 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  33 

the  perception  of  beauty — to  reduce,  in  other  words,  the 
ethical  judgment  to  the  aesthetic. 

It  seems  very  probable  that  in  the  complex  to  which 
we  assign  the  convenient  name  conscience,  aesthetic  feeling 
plays  a  not  unimportant  part.  The  positive  and  attrac- 
tive content  of  moral  good  would  commonly  be  recognized 
as  at  least  a  semi-aesthetic  object;  and  almost  always 
moral  theorists — of  the  Greek  or  pagan  school — who 
emphasize  this  positive  content  have  shown  a  disposition 
to  emphasize  also  the  community  of  the  good  with  beauty. 
And  not  only  has  the  moral  object  an  aesthetic  character, 
but  the  motive  power  it  exerts  may  be  due,  at  times,  just 
to  its  aesthetic  attractiveness,  and  not  to  a  prior  impulse 
to  attain  it ;  the  desire  follows,  rather  than  in  any  obvious 
way  precedes,  the  admiration.  For  a  certain  type  of 
mind  it  may  even  be  that  ethical  ideals  are  principally 
determined  by  the  consciously  aesthetic  effects  of  the 
"beautiful  life" ;  such  for  example  is  the  later  philosophy 
of  Oscar  Wilde. 

But  granting  this,  it  still  seems  impossible  to  accept 
the  reduction  of  the  moral  judgment  to  the  aesthetic. 
After  all,  immediate  "aesthetic"  approval,  as  a  sense  of 
beauty  or  sublimity,  is  not  identical  with  the  judgment 
that  its  object  is  "good."  Beauty  is  not  the  same  as 
goodness ;  it  is  a  good.  We  have  to  stand  off  and  reflect 
upon  it  before  we  call  it  good ;  and  we  call  it  good  precisely 
because  aesthetic  contemplation  is  itself  pleasurable. 
More  generally,  we  need  to  recognize  that  the  immediate 
instinctive  reaction  of  human  nature  to  objects  in  emo- 
tional terms,  though  it  may  sometimes  be  connected  with 
contemplation  in  the  presence  of  the  object  rather  than 
with  active  conduct,  is  not  yet  a  judgment  of  goodness, 
or  what  we  are  talking  of  as  approval;  the  reflection 


34  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

which  gives  rise  to  the  concept  of  goodness  is  not  an  imme- 
diate emotional  experience,  but  a  subsequent  intellectual 
one.  The  d:rect  emotional  judgments  which  experience 
evokes  are  an  exceedingly  important  part  of  its  subject 
matter.  Not  only  do  they,  as  notably  in  the  case  of 
beauty,  give  rise  to  values  which  are  new  in  kind,  but  also 
they  may  be  the  means  of  revealing  the  presence  in  us  of 
active  desires  of  which  we  hitherto  have  been  unaware. 
Thus  the  man  who  has  felt  in  himself  no  call  to  lead  the 
heroic  life  may  find  his  judgment  affected  by  the  thrill 
of  admiration,  and  so  be  induced  to  cultivate  qualities 
for  which  naturally  he  has  no  strong  personal  relish.  But 
theoretically  all  such  experiences  still  remain  different 
from,  and  more  ultimate  than,  the  judgment  of  goodness. 
It  seems  more  reasonable  therefore  to  interpret  the 
esthetic  quality  which  the  good  indubitably  may  possess 
as  a  result  rather  than  a  cause.  We  can  quite  well  admit 
that  goodness  has  characteristics  which  make  it  one  of 
the  objects  capable  of  arousing  aesthetic  appreciation, 
without  going  on  to  claim  that  this  aesthetic  quality  con- 
stitutes its  nature  as  goodness ;  this  is  no  more  true  than 
that  the  beauty  of  the  religious  life  constitutes  religion. 

Meanwhile  there  is  one  term  I  have  had  occasion  once 
or  twice  to  use  which  deserves  a  further  word,  since  it 
will  play  a  part  in  the  subsequent  analysis.  The  particu- 
lar form  of  emotional  reaction  which  we  are  most  likely 
to  confuse  with  intellectual  "approval"  is  not  the  feeling 
of  beauty  in  its  narrower  sense,  but  the  feeling  of  admira- 
tion; to  admire  a  thing,  and  to  call  it  good,  it  may  per- 
haps seem  at  first  view  a  little  arbitrary  to  discriminate. 
But  closer  attention  will,  I  think,  both  justify  the  dis- 
tinction, and  show  why  the  confusion  is  likely  to  arise. 

Admiration  is,  as  such,  an  immediate  emotional  response 
— an  emotion  belonging  to  the  general  class  of  the 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  35 

aesthetic,  which  differs  from  the  feeling  of  sensuous  beauty 
not  so  much  in  its  essence  as  in  the  nature  of  the  object 
which  calls  it  forth.  And  the  important  difference  seems 
to  be  this,  that  admiration  is  elicited,  not  by  a  sensuous 
object,  but  by  a  quality  intellectually  recognized  in  an 
object;  more  specifically,  we  admire  only  what  displays 
some  character  independently  judged  by  us  to  be  good, 
when  this  is  present  in  an  indeterminate,  but  at  any  rate 
an  unusual  degree.  Thus  to  feel  the  beauty  of  a  picture, 
and  to  admire  a  picture,  are  both  describable  as  aesthetic 
experiences ;  but  they  are  nevertheless  not  identical  experi- 
ences. For  when  I  admire  the  picture  I  am  regarding  it 
as  revealing,  in  notable  measure,  a  certain  quality  in  the 
maker  of  the  picture,  namely,  artistic  skill.  Such  a  con- 
nection with  human  capacity,  in  some  more  or  less  direct 
way,  is  indeed  apparently  a  requisite  in  qualities  that  are 
to  call  forth  admiration  in  the  strict  sense ;  when  I  "ad- 
mire" works  of  nature,  I  always  find  myself,  I  think,  per- 
sonifying the  situation,  and  vaguely  regarding  it  as  the 
output  of  a  quasi-human  power.  Meanwhile — and  this  is 
all  that  bears  directly  on  the  present  argument — the  qual- 
ity of  skill,  or  power,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  must  at  any 
rate  be  conceived  as  a  "good"  before  admiration  is 
aroused.  And  consequently  it  is  understandable  that  we 
should  tend  to  confuse  admirableness  and  goodness,  since 
the  former  never  occurs  without  the  latter ;  while  yet  the 
feeling  of  admiration,  as  a  secondary  emotional  result  of 
this  recognition  under  assignable  conditions,  makes  it  in 
itself  quite  other  than  "approval." 

Summary. — Before  proceeding,  it  may  be  well  to  restate 
the  whole  situation  in  its  larger  aspects.  The  one  funda- 
mental fact  of  ethics  is,  to  begin  with,  the  fact  of  life 
itself,  as  a  complex  of  active  processes  growing  out  of 
native  disposition.  Certain  conditions  attending  this  self- 


36  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

expression — conditions  which  there  are  reasons  for 
describing  roughly  in  terms  of  a  freely-moving  and  suc- 
cessful carrying  out  of  impulse — give  rise  to  the  new  fact 
of  pleasurable  feeling  tone.  And  at  the  descriptive  level 
of  animal  behavior  we  perhaps  could  stop  here.  Behavior, 
however,  is  not  all  we  mean  by  human  life.  We  do  not 
simply  act  upon  ends.  We  present  ends  consciously  to 
our  minds,  choose  and  reject  among  them,  look  into  the 
future,  and  try  to  gain  some  large  and  comprehensive 
guidance. 

And  we  are  able  to  do  this  intelligently  and  to  good 
purpose,  because  we  have  a  sign  or  indication  that  we 
are  heading  the  right  way  in  the  fact  of  pleasure,  or 
the  feeling  of  satisfaction.  If  the  selection  of  our  ends  is 
no  longer  to  be  trusted  to  an  automatic  mechanism,  and 
they  are  to  be  put  under  the  control  of  intelligence  instead, 
there  must  be  some  way  in  which  intelligence  shall  recog- 
nize its  own.  The  "scientific"  working  of  the  intellect,  in 
the  way  of  perceiving  facts,  events,  and  relationships,  and 
drawing  proper  inferences  from  them,  is  not  enough  here. 
If  the  end  which  the  organism  sets  and  which  constitutes 
living  were  a  simple  and  unambiguous  one — the  preserva- 
tion of  life,  say,  at  all  hazards  against  the  chances  and 
accidents  of  the  environment — intellect  indeed  would  not 
need  to  go  beyond  its  familiar  utilitarian  and  scientific 
exercise.  All  that  would  be  called  for  would  be  a  careful 
and  impartial  survey  of  the  situation  in  order  to  discover 
the  means  appropriate  to  an  end  previously  settled  and  de- 
fined. But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  case  is  otherwise.  The 
end  is  not  a  single  and  preestablished  one,  to  which  we  are 
pushed  from  behind  inevitably  by  unconscious  forces.  Our 
most  difficult  task  is  to  decide  what  in  any  comprehensive 
way  the  end  of  life  really  is,  and  to  settle  accounts  between 
a  host  of  competing  claimants.  And  for  this  task  we 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  37 

need  an  intellectual  tool  different  from  the  purely  scien- 
tific intellect  which  deals  with  qualities  and  connections 
of  things  all  on  the  same  level  of  existence.  We  have  to 
have  a  means  of  estimating  ends  themselves.  And  such  a 
tool  we  possess  in  the  perception  of  values.  A  value,  I 
have  held,  is  definable  as  any  thing  that  excites  in  us,  in 
reflection,  a  feeling  of  pleasure.  And  nothing  has  this 
power  except  as  it  is  also  productive  in  itself  of  pleasure ; 
the  only  reason  we  can  give  to  account  for  its  attractive- 
ness to  the  mind — its  value  nature — is  that  it  stands  in 
such  a  relation  to  our  active  nature  that  satisfaction  is 
its  natural  accompaniment. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  pleasure  ought  to  be  called 
our  only  motive.  On  the  contrary,  "motive"  has  no  clear 
meaning  except  as  it  stands  for  that  which,  held  before 
the  mind,  through  its  attraction  for  us  leads  to  action; 
and  many  things  besides  pleasure  fit  this  definition.  They 
all  have  pleasure  capacity  connected  with  them.  But  be- 
cause a  thing  will  not  work  without  a  certain  quality,  it 
does  not  need  to  be  the  quality  alone  that  does  the  work. 
Coal  does  not  warm  us  except  as  it  is  hot ;  but  it  is  much 
more  natural  to  say  that  we  heat  our  houses  by  means 
of  coal  than  by  means  of  hotness.  After  all  the  question 
is  not  one  of  theory  but  of  fact ;  and  the  fact  is,  beyond 
any  manner  of  doubt,  that  the  thought  of  many  other 
things  induces  us  to  act  besides  the  thought  of  future 
pleasure.  Indeed  the  more  we  try  to  whittle  down  the 
motive  to  the  bare  feeling  of  pleasantness,  and  to  exclude 
the  concrete  circumstances  in  connection  with  which  the 
pleasure  occurs,  the  less  attractive  is  the  idea  certain  to 
become.  I  see  for  example  a  picture  that  I  want  to  buy. 
Clearly  it  is  the  thought  of  the  actual  picture  with  all 
its  concrete  beauty  that  induces  me  to  purchase  it,  and 
not  a  mere  anticipation  of  my  pleased  state  of  mind 


38  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

when  it  shall  hang  upon  my  walls;  for  unless  I  held  the 
picture  itself  before  me  I  should  anticipate  no  pleasure. 
So,  again,  the  more  we  separate  pleasures  from  the  actual 
occasions  of  their  appearance,  the  more  desperate  becomes 
the  task  of  estimating  and  comparing  them.  All  pleasures 
in  the  abstract  look  alike;  we  can  tell  whether  we  prefer 
one  thing  to  another  only  as  we  bring  before  ourselves 
as  fully  as  possible  the  entire  situation  out  of  which  the 
pleasure  arises. 

The  theory  I  am  adopting,  then,  is  not  properly  to  be 
called  hedonism  in  the  historical  sense,  for  it  does  not 
say  that  we  aim  only  at  pleasure.  There  is  no  need  of 
meaning  this,  since  "good"  I  take  to  be  the  content  of  a 
secondary  and  reflective  judgment.  This  leaves  it  to  be 
settled  entirely  without  prejudice  at  what  we  do  actually 
aim ;  it  only  says  that  no  aim  will  be  called  reflectively  a 
good  aim  unless  it  tends  to  result  in  pleasure.  Nor  do  I 
intend  to  say  that  mere  pleasurableness  by  itself  is  good. 
Pleasantness  as  such  is  not  good  because  pleasantness 
does  not  exist  by  itself ;  a  good  is  concrete,  and  pleasant- 
ness merely  an  abstract  quality. 

Why  All  Pleasures  Are  Not  Adjudged  Good. — Now 
also  we  need  to  take  a  further  step,  and  note  that  while 
nothing  is  called  good  which  is  not  connected  with  pleas- 
ure, not  every  pleasure  by  any  means  is  called  good;  at 
least  it  is  not  called  good  in  the  sense  in  which  ethics  is 
chiefly  interested  in  the  term.  If  there  is  any  apparent 
contradiction  in  this  statement,  it  is  due  to  overlooking 
certain  simple  considerations.  And  as  a  first  preliminary, 
we  need  to  note  two  quite  distinct  intellectual  attitudes 
which  we  may  on  different  occasions  adopt.  A  child  takes 
pleasure  in  playing  with  its  blocks ;  is  this  a  case  of  the 
good,  or  not?  Evidently  it  is  a  good  for  the  child.  So 
also  for  me,  watching  the  child,  it  is  a  good  in  the  sense 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  39 

that  I  can,  by  putting  myself  in  his  place,  recognize  the 
appropriateness  of  the  descriptive  adjective.  But  it  prob- 
ably is  not  my  good  in  the  further  sense  that  it  enters 
into  my  own  reflective  end  or  scheme  of  life.  We  have, 
in  other  words,  to  keep  separate  the  point  of  view  of  the 
observer  who  is  interested  in  noting  the  conditions  under 
which  an  object  may  for  any  one,  and  under  any  circum- 
stances, be  recognized  as  good,  and  that  of  the  active 
agent  who  wants  for  practical  reasons  to  draw  up  an 
account  of  the  good  end  for  him,  as  an  individual  or  a 
member  of  the  human  race. 

And  from  this  last  formulation  many  pleasures  will  be 
excluded  that  might,  were  the  practical  interest  disre- 
garded, be  talked  about  by  the  disinterested  spectator 
as  cases  of  the  good.  We  should,  to  begin  with,  exclude 
those  pleasures  of  the  lower  animals,  or  of  degenerate 
human  beings,  which  fail  to  have  an  attraction  for  the 
normal  human  mind,  though  intellectually  we  may  see 
reason  to  believe  that  they  represent,  to  a  differently  con- 
stituted nervous  organism,  the  same  affective  thrill  that 
renders  other  things  good  for  us.  Consider  for  example 
Mill's  famous  saying,  It  is  better  to  be  a  human  being 
dissatisfied  than  a  pig  satisfied.  One  can  readily  imagine 
the  life  of  a  well-cared-for  healthy  pig  to  be  in  the 
abstract  an  enviable  one ;  granted  that  his  nervous  system 
is  sufficiently  delicate  to  make  his  pleasures  genuinely 
pleasant  to  him,  it  perhaps  comes  as  near  being  one  con- 
tinuous round  of  enjoyment,  unhampered  by  mental  or 
spiritual  worries,  as  it  is  easy  to  conceive.  But  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  unhappiest  of  human  beings  ever 
genuinely  desired  to  escape  his  troubles  by  such  a  path. 
Men  are  not  constituted  like  pigs,  and  therefore  they 
cannot  genuinely  wish  themselves  in  the  place  of  pigs. 
If  they  really  were  pigs  they  might  actually  have  a  pleas- 


40  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

anter  time  of  it;  but  that  would  suppose  them  already 
different  from  what  they  are.  In  asking  them  to  decide 
whether  they  want  a  pig's  happiness,  it  is  assumed,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  motives  on  which  they  judge  are  the 
motives  of  their  actual  present  nature.  And  if  this  happi- 
ness does  not  awake  in  them  a  responsive  chord,  but, 
rather,  a  sense  of  degradation  and  disgust,  they  cannot 
really  wish  themselves  enjoying  it.  In  a  general  way 
they  want  happiness ;  and  if  they  do  not  stop  to  analyze 
it  may  seem  to  them  that  any  happiness  will  do.  But  when 
they  come  to  specify  they  discover  that  what  they  want  is 
their  own  kind  of  happiness,  not  that  of  some  other  being ; 
the  happiness  they  really  crave  is  the  particular  brand 
that  meets  their  organic  needs,  and  not  pleasure  in 
general. 

For  ethics,  then,  we  may  set  aside  the  attitude  which 
ignores  the  special  interest  man  has  in  finding  what  is 
happiness  for  him.  As  ethicists  we  are  concerned  with 
human  good.  We  are  interested  not  in  scientific  or  psy- 
chological conditions  of  pleasure  in  general,  but  in  discov- 
ering what  things  in  the  concrete  give  pleasure  to  this 
particular  sort  of  being — man.  But  now  we  come  to  a 
second  limitation,  which  is  closer  to  the  real  subject- 
matter  of  ethics;  from  the  notion  of  the  good  one  will 
find  it  necessary  to  exclude  many  things  that  even  he  him- 
self finds  pleasurable.  Some  of  the  pleasures  of  eating, 
for  example,  we  are  likely  to  decline  to  call  in  our  enlight- 
ened judgment  good.  It  is  important  to  note  again  just 
what  we  mean  by  this.  It  is  not  as  if  we  were  wholly 
mistaken  in  our  application  of  the  term.  In  some  sense 
the  word  good  still  seems  to  fit.  And  if  in  another  sense 
we  deny  that  the  pleasure  of  eating  is  good,  all  we  intend 
to  say,  so  far,  is  that  its  goodness  per  se  is  outweighed  in 
our  minds  by  other  and  concomitant  ills — indigestion  and 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  41 

the  like — to  which  it  gives  rise.  It  is  not  good  on  the 
whole.  In  itself  it  still  gives  pleasure,  and  pleasure  is  a 
good.  But  the  reflective  judgment  on  which  the  recog- 
nition of  goodness  depends  is  influenced  also  by  a  variety 
of  other  considerations ;  and  these  prevent  in  the  present 
instance  the  judgment  from  being  pronounced  whole- 
heartedly and  without  qualification.  If  goodness  were 
identical  with  pleasure  this  might  occasion  a  difficulty, 
since  the  pleasure  admittedly  is  actual.  But  there  is 
nothing  to  prevent  a  thing,  pleasant  in  itself,  from  failing 
to  arouse  pleasure  in  our  thought  of  it,  if  it  forms  part  of 
a  larger  situation  to  which  the  feeling  tone  of  the  reflec- 
tive thought  is  due;  though  abstractly  it  is  still  good 
in  the  sense  that,  were  the  complicating  circumstances 
absent,  it  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  normally  would  produce 
the  value  judgment. 

The  natural  way  of  putting  this  is  to  say  that  ethics 
aims  to  tell  us  what  is  really  our  good,  in  the  face  of  our 
constant  temptation  to  take  some  transient  and  incon- 
sequential pleasure  as  if  it  could  stand  the  test  of  our 
more  reasonable  moods.  It  is  tke  permanent  good,  the 
good  on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run,  that  we  are  after ; 
and  this  renders  it  impossible  to  stop  with  the  mere  fact 
that  something  gives  us  pleasure.  Pleasures  have  to  be 
judged  before  we  can  grant  them  any  settled  right  to 
the  title  of  my  good,  or  human  good.  In  a  superficial 
way  I  can  still  say  I  want  the  thing  that  gives  me  this 
transient  pleasure ;  and  in  so  far  as  I  want  it,  and  nothing 
else  prevents,  I  am  bound  to  think  of  it  with  pleasure  and 
approval.  But  in  my  sober  moods  I  know  that  I  really 
do  not  want  it  as  badly  as  I  may  incline  at  times  to 
suppose  I  do ;  what  I  want  more  is  the  larger  satisfaction 
that  does  not  stop  with  the  moment,  or  with  a  single 
appetite  or  interest.  This  would  not  of  course  be  pos- 


42  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

sible  were  I  merely  a  creature  of  impulse.  If  each  appe- 
tite as  it  arose  claimed  the  whole  field  till  it  was  satisfied, 
giving  place  then  to  the  next,  one  pleasure  would  be  just 
as  good  as  another.  But  it  requires  no  proof  that  this  is 
not  the  sort  of  creature  a  human  being  is.  He  is  a  being 
with  intelligence  as  well  as  appetite,  who  aims  at  some 
manner  of  reasonable  adjustment  among  the  impulses 
that  lie  alongside  one  another  in  his  make-up;  he  is 
capable  of  conceiving  his  life,  not  as  just  one  thing  after 
another,  but  in  relation  to  more  permanent  interests  that 
tie  his  daily  activities  together.  We  are  not  now  talking 
of  what  he  ought  to  be.  He  is  this  as  a  plain  matter  of 
fact,  in  greater  or  less  degree. 

It  is  this  which  accounts  for  the  ethical  superiority  of 
the  judgment  of  approval  over  mere  desire  so  that  it  is 
able  to  rank  desires  in  their  order  of  value,  even  though 
the  pleasure  which  constitutes  the  sense  of  approval  rests 
itself  psychologically  on  the  basic  fact  of  impulse.  It  is 
just  the  advantage  of  being  a  reflective  judgment,  not 
bound  down  to  the  exigencies  of  the  moment,  or  dependent 
on  the  temporary  state  of  the  organism.  Its  possibilities 
are  the  possibilities  of  our  more  impartial  and  reasonable 
nature.  This  presupposes  only  two  things.  It  assumes 
the  empirical  unity  of  the  self,  in  the  sense  that  we  are  as 
a  matter  of  fact  in  some  measure  constituted  in  a  way  to 
make  possible  an  organization  or  harmony  of  the  springs 
of  desire,  so  that  a  successful  life  consists  in  integrating 
the  ends  of  conduct  instead  of  leaving  them  a  mass  of  con- 
flicting impulses.  And,  secondly,  it  assumes  the  power 
which  we  have  through  reason  of  anticipating  this  har- 
mony in  the  ideal  realm,  by  thinking  the  scattered  ends 
of  our  life  together,  and,  through  an  anticipatory  judg- 
ment of  what  is  likely  to  be  their  final  and  permanent 
appeal,  getting  a  tool  for  coercing  the  tyranny  of  their 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  43 

temporary  and  merely  organic  insistence.  I  desire  some 
pleasure  of  sense;  and  if  I  could  keep  my  mind  solely  on 
the  one  desire  and  its  attendant  pleasure  I  should  unhesi- 
tatingly pronounce  it  good.  But  this  is  just  what  the 
mind  refuses  to  do.  Its  very  nature  is  to  spread ;  it  can 
no  more  be  confined  to  the  simple  field  of  present  intensi- 
fied desire,  except  as  the  desire  is  so  abnormally  strong  as 
temporarily  to  inhibit  the  exercise  of  reason,  than  water 
will  confine  itself  to  circumscribed  limits  on  a  level  surface. 

It  may  be  well  to  make  sure,  again,  that  we  are  not 
getting  ahead  faster  than  the  argument  allows.  I  have 
assumed  so  far  no  more  than  this,  that  man  is  a  creature 
who  is  engaged  primarily  in  the  endeavor  to  satisfy  his 
desires.  As  yet  the  only  point  has  been  that  it  is  our 
main  business  in  life  to  get  what  we  want,  under  the  pro- 
viso that  we  take  care  not  to  judge  the  content  of  desire 
unintelligently,  and  so  sacrifice  what  we  really  want  for 
something  we  shall  afterwards  regret.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  question  of  not  being  immoral,  as  it  is  a  question  of  not 
being  a  fool.  We  have  had  no  reason  as  yet  to  say  that 
this  transient  and  undesirable  pleasure  is  wrong  or  sinful ; 
it  is  wrong  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  wrong  means 
to  adopt  if  we  want  the  greatest  satisfaction  on  the  whole. 
The  entire  matter  is  simply  one  of  calculation,  or  expe- 
diency. If  I  could  see  a  chance  to  slip  the  pleasure  in 
without  too  great  a  loss  I  should  do  it.  But  if  there 
appears  no  way  to  manage  this,  I  try  to  be  a  good  sport 
and  go  without,  though  I  do  not  make  the  mistake  of 
denying  that  I  have  thereby  lost  a  certain  element  of 
good.  The  pleasure  itself  is  not  bad;  it  is  only  bad 
for  me.  But  being  bad  for  me,  I  do  not  in  its  context 
stand  ready  to  approve  it ;  and  therefore,  though  it  is  a 
pleasure,  it  is  not  a  good. 

Quantity   of   Pleasure   and   the   Good. — And   now   the 


44  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

recognition  that,  for  anyone  who  is  not  a  fool,  the  good 
of  life  is  something  which  is  good  on  the  whole,  and  not 
pleasure  of  any  sort  irrespective  of  its  content,  suggests 
one  further  and  important  qualification  to  the  thesis  that 
pleasure  is  what  constitutes  a  thing  good.  As  the  present 
theory  does  not  imply  that  every  pleasure  must  neces- 
sarily be  a  part  of  the  concrete  good  for  me,  so  neither 
does  it  imply  that  my  good  is  measured  by  the  greatest 
quantity  or  intensity  of  pleasure.  We  have  to  postu- 
late— because  we  find  it  so — that  man  is  a  being  unified 
enough  to  be  capable  of  pleasure  "on  the  whole" ;  but 
what  pleasure  on  the  whole  means  has  to  be  settled  by  the 
evidence.  It  is  of  course  conceivable  that  it  might  have 
been  found  in  the  choice  of  the  most  intense  pleasures,  or 
of  the  greatest  sum  of  pleasures.  But  the  fact  seems  to 
be  that  normally  it  is  not  so  found.  There  is  a  meaning, 
difficult  to  define  but  open  to  introspective  testing,  in  such 
words  as  "total  satisfaction"  or  "contentment" — some- 
thing which  we  feel  involves  the  harmonious  reaction  of 
our  natures  in  a  way  that  distinguishes  it  from  the  mere 
sum  of  individual  pleasures  we  may  enjoy.  For  a  sum 
of  pleasures  is  a  compound  which  does  not  exist  as  a  whole 
at  any  single  moment ;  whereas  "satisfaction"  is  itself  an 
individual  and  unitary  state  of  feeling,  with  a  character 
of  its  own  that  is  easily  identified  when  actually  it  comes 
into  being.  Satisfaction  is  a  feeling  state  of  enjoyment. 
But  I  can  enjoy  without  in  the  least  feeling  satisfied;  I 
may  even  experience  a  strong  disgust  at  my  pleasure  at 
the  very  moment  it  is  pleasant  to  me.  Far  from  being 
a  mere  sum,  contentment  has  apparently  not  a  quantita- 
tive nature  at  all.  I  can  say  that  the  pleasure  my  dinner 
gives  me  is  greater  or  less  in  amount  or  intensity;  the 
pleasure  of  eating  is  always  there,  but  there  is  more  of 
it  at  one  time  than  another.  But  when  I  say  that  I  am 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  45 

more  or  less  satisfied,  the  meaning  seems  to  be  a  different 
one.  There  is  no  maximum  which  is  identified  with  the 
pleasure  of  taste;  but  to  be  "content"  is  a  perfectly  defi- 
nite state  of  consciousness,  which  I  either  have  or  I  do 
not.  When  I  say  therefore  that  I  am  more  or  less  con- 
tent, what  I  mean  is  that  I  am  nearer  to  contentment,  or 
further  from  it,  as  the  case  may  be. 

Accordingly  when  I  come  to  deliberate  and  choose  a 
line  of  action,  what  goes  on  in  me,  if  I  can  trust  my  own 
introspection,  is  something  like  this:  Primarily  I  project 
myself  in  imagination  first  in  one  alternative  situation  and 
then  the  other,  try  to  live  out  the  thing,  get  the  feel  of  it, 
soak  up  the  resultant  satisfactoriness  as  a  whole  by  antici- 
pation. Incidentally,  however,  this  will  often  involve  set- 
ting off  pleasure  against  pleasure  or  pleasure  against 
pain,  particularly  in  so  far  as  we  are  dependent  on  a  recol- 
lection of  past  pleasures  the  force  of  whose  present  appeal 
is  fluctuating  and  doubtful.  I  may  know  intellectually 
the  goodness  of  some  object  more  accurately  than  if  I 
trusted  my  present  feeling  of  its  goodness  at  the  moment 
of  deliberation — for  example,  in  the  ordering  of  a  dinner 
at  a  time  when  in  the  absence  of  hunger  the  thought  of 
food  makes  no  special  immediate  appeal ;  and  then  I  prob- 
ably find  myself  estimating  roughly  the  intensity  of  past 
feelings.  This  is  more  apt  to  be  the  case  with  relatively 
minor  and  disconnected  pleasures  than  with  our  more 
significant  and  permanent  aims;  though  these  last,  too, 
are  not  independent  of  our  moods,  and  even  a  very  funda- 
mental interest  may  for  the  time  being  seem  dull  and 
tasteless,  and  quite  lacking  in  the  weight  our  intellectual 
judgment,  drawing  on  the  memory  of  past  satisfactions, 
is  aware  it  ought  to  be  assigned.  And  in  so  far  as  such 
data  refuse  to  enter  into  an  immediate  unity  of  antici- 
pated experience,  there  is  no  way  of  dealing  with  them 


46  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

except  in  a  spirit  of  numerical  or  quasi-numerical  calcu- 
lation. 

The  method  is  rough  and  precarious,  being  open  to  all 
the  defects  that  result  from  the  unreliability  of  memory, 
the  very  considerable  chance  that  the  same  object  will 
not  appeal  to  me  again  just  as  it  did  before,  and  the 
extreme  vagueness  of  the  quantitative  data.  These  data 
are  indeed  not  altogether  unworkable  when  we  simplify 
the  situation  sufficiently.  While  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  clear  idea  attaches  to  the  sum  of  several  pleasures, 
we  can  compare  individual  pains  and  pleasures  with  a 
measure  of  exactness.  Thus  if  there  are  two  pleasures  of 
a  known  and  standard  value  belonging  to  the  rival  situa- 
tions which  I  feel  to  be  approximately  equal  in  intensity, 
I  can  pair  them  off  and  exclude  them  from  the  reckoning. 
Or,  again,  any  considerable  hedonic  advantage  which  an 
element  in  one  situation  has  over  some  corresponding 
element  in  the  other  can  be  used  to  weight  the  former, 
until  it  is  offset  by  something  else.  But  such  explicit 
calculations  nevertheless  are  likely  to  have  a  much  more 
subordinate  place  in  proportion  as  we  pass  from  relatively 
unimportant  ends  to  larger  and  weightier  issues;  here 
they  seldom  play  other  than  a  preliminary  role,  and  are 
recognized  as  useful  for  simplifying  the  problem  and  mak- 
ing it  more  manageable,  rather  than  as  solving  it.  The 
final  decision  is  of  a  far  less  mechanical  nature,  and  con- 
sists, again,  in  the  attempt  to  realize  the  immediate 
inwardness  of  the  act  as  a  whole.  Indeed  this  is  necessary 
even,  since  the  method  of  calculation  presupposes  condi- 
tions which  are  seldom  present  in  a  complex  situation. 
How  pleasurable  a  thing  will  turn  out  to  be  is  often  at 
the  start  entirely  unsettled ;  only  in  the  light  of  the  whole 
does  the  relative  worth  of  many  of  the  elements  first 
become  determinate. 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  47 

The  essential  business  of  the  ethical  or  rational  life  is, 
then,  to  compare  ends,  or  courses  of  conduct,  as  wholes. 
This  does  not  exclude  the  special  desires  and  their  pleas- 
urableness ;  there  can  be  no  whole  without  parts,  and  the 
desires  are  the  parts.  But  in  coming  into  relation  to  a 
larger  situation  they  tend  to  lose  their  sharply  separate 
character.  Thus  the  pleasure  of  a  good  dinner  becomes 
noticeably  less  alluring  if  I  have  to  eat  it  with  the  thought 
in  my  head  that  I  am  to  make  a  speech  afterwards.  The 
appeal  pleasures  make  is  modified  by  an  appraisal  of  the 
way  they  look  to  an  intelligent  and  sensible  being  who 
sees  around  them,  and  notes  their  less  immediate  char- 
acters and  their  consequences.  And  whereas  in  compar- 
ing single  desires  or  pleasures  it  is  by  their  relative  inten- 
sity that  we  decide  which  it  is  we  want,  intensity  is  some- 
thing which  does  not  seem  to  belong  to  totalities.  Rather, 
here,  it  is  the  new  quality  of  "satisf  actoriness" — a  quality 
which  involves  a  reference  not  to  one  desire  taken  singly 
but  to  desire  in  its  relationships  and  context — that  decides 
between  competing  goals.  An  intense  life  is  simply  a  life 
characterized  by  a  rush  and  vividness  of  interests,  and 
may  or  may  not  be  "satisfying." 

As  for  quantity  of  pleasure  in  any  precise  numerical 
sense,  this  is  left  an  almost  negligible  place  in  our  ethical 
judgments.  Two  pleasures,  even  when  they  are  dissimilar 
in  kind,  may  be  compared  vaguely  in  respect  of  their 
intensity ;  but  intensity  does  not  lend  itself  to  exact  quan- 
titative treatment.  Except  in  the  unimportant  sense  that 
a  and  b  together  are  quantitatively  greater  than  either 
would  be  alone — which  would  seem  to  follow  so  long  as 
two  is  greater  than  one — we  can  "add"  pleasures  only  in 
case  we  are  dealing  with  identical  units.  Thus  I  see  no 
definite  meaning  to  the  claim  that  I  get  double  the  amount 
of  pleasure  out  of  a  game  of  tennis  that  I  do  out  of  a 


48  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

good  dinner;  though  I  might  get  more  pleasure  out  of 
both  than  out  of  either  singly,  and  I  might  get  twice  as 
much  pleasure  out  of  two  games  of  tennis  as  out  of  one. 
Within  narrow  limits  we  may  thus  apply  the  quantitative 
test;  other  things  being  equal,  I  shall  secure  a  determi- 
nately  less  amount  of  enjoyment  out  of  a  day's  vacation 
than  out  of  a  week's.  But  then  other  things  are  seldom 
equal;  and  if  I  am  likely  to  be  bored  before  the  week  is 
over,  I  need  to  fall  back  on  something  different  from  quan- 
titative addition.  In  practice  the  only  clear  meaning 
therefore  that  a  "sum  of  pleasure"  carries  is  this,  that  I 
want  my  life  to  be  a  continuous  series  of  satisfied  moments 
lasting  as  long  as  possible.  But  this  is  pretty  much  an 
empty  platitude,  which  throws  almost  no  light  at  all  on 
what  constitutes  satisfaction  at  any  given  moment. 

The  Good  as  Satisfaction. — There  is  then,  we  may 
assume,  a  kind  of  life  which,  in  view  of  the  sort  of  person 
I  am,  the  nature  and  relative  strength  of  my  interests 
and  capacities,  my  disposition  to  like  or  dislike  things, 
the  clearness  and  sensitiveness  of  my  intellectual  judg- 
ments, will  actually  come  nearest  to  making  me  a  satis- 
fied man.  Contentment  is  of  course  not  intended  here  to 
suggest  passivity,  or  the  sort  of  acquiescence  in  present 
attainment  that  implies  a  refusal  to  exercise  intelligent 
self-criticism.  Real  satisfaction  is  attainable  only  as  it 
meets  the  full  possibilities  of  human  nature,  including  the 
demands  upon  intellectual  approval  and  self-respect, 
since  otherwise  our  complacency  is  in  danger  at  any 
moment  of  being  rudely  shocked.  This  however  does  not 
mean,  for  a  human  being,  full  and  perfect  attainment 
that  leaves  nothing  more  to  strive  for.  It  might  mean 
this  were  man  a  being  capable  of  such  full  achievement. 
But  he  is  not;  and  any  ideal  is  self-defeating,  and  so 
undermines  its  own  theoretical  validity,  if  it  refuses  to  be 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  49 

realistic  and  to  take  facts  as  they  are.  The  fundamental 
defect  is  the  same  in  both  cases ;  it  comes  from  an  attempt 
to  ignore  development,  and  to  find  the  good  in  an  achieved 
condition.  In  the  one  instance  the  attempt  fails  because 
the  possibilities  of  achievement  are  wrongly  taken  as 
already  reached.  In  the  other,  the  impossibility  of  rest- 
ing at  any  one  stage  of  progress  may  be  recognized,  but 
without  giving  up  the  ideal  of  perfection  itself;  so  that 
we  are  forced  to  locate  the  ideal  life  in  some  mystical  and 
inconceivable  experience  out  of  time  altogether. 

It  follows  that  true  contentment,  if  it  is  not  to  wreck 
itself  either  on  a  narrow  and  unintelligent  self-satisfac- 
tion, or  on  an  unattainable  perfection,  must  express  itself, 
rather,  in  terms  of  a  satisfying  sense  of  progress.  And 
this  means  that,  so  long  as  progress  goes  on  under  con- 
ditions as  we  actually  know  them — and  there  is,  again, 
nothing  to  be  gained  by  fitting  our  ideal  to  a  world  other 
than  the  one  in  which  we  live — the  sense  of  satisfaction 
is  not  a  status  merely,  but  a  matter  of  intelligence  and 
will.  It  is  something  to  be  achieved  by  effort,  and  not 
simply  to  be  enjoyed.  Rational  satisfaction  is  no  dream 
of  an  undisturbed  and  impossibly  complete  felicity.  It 
is  not  inconsistent  with  pain  and  sorrow,  and  the  exclusion 
of  many  human  delights.  To  have  the  least  chance  of 
success  it  must  be  weighted  with  a  sober  sense  of  reality, 
and  an  acceptance  of  the  actual  conditions  of  human  liv- 
ing ;  to  demand  more  than  life  can  possibly  give  is  to  cut 
off  our  chance  of  satisfaction  at  the  outset.  We  must  be 
ready,  if  we  are  not  to  be  always  open  to  the  inroads  of 
discontent,  to  see  and  acquiesce  in  inevitable  limitations, 
to  make  the  best  of  necessarily  imperfect  attainment,  to 
give  up  without  repining  what  does  not  lend  itself  to  our 
more  dominant  and  insistent  interests,  to  prefer  defeat 
to  success  that  degrades  us  in  our  own  eyes.  There  is  no 


50  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

real  paradox  in  the  claim  that  satisfaction  is  open  only 
to  the  man  who  stands  prepared  to  give  up  pleasures. 
This  only  means,  again,  that  satisfaction  as  a  human  goal 
is  not  an  abstract  ideal  of  limitless  good,  but  presupposes 
a  determinate  human  nature  set  to  work  out  its  destiny 
in  determinate  surroundings.  That  at  which  a  sensible 
human  being  aims  is  no  unimaginable  state  of  the  intensest 
possible  pleasure  unaccompanied  by  pain,  but  the  realiza- 
tion that  he  is  making  the  very  most  of  life  that  it  is 
possible  for  him,  with  his  particular  interests  and  limita- 
tions, to  make,  considering  the  means  at  his  disposal.  If 
one  is  not  willing  to  accept  these  qualifications,  he  is  not 
yet  prepared  to  set  out  intelligently  to  secure  satisfaction. 
And  it  is  a  verifiable  fact  of  experience  that  on  these 
terms  there  is  open  to  me,  normally,  the  possibility  of  a 
successful  and  contented  life,  essentially  unspoiled  by  the 
presence  of  what,  considered  by  themselves,  I  must  regard 
as  evils.  And  if  this  is  not  just  what  we  should  prefer  if 
it  were  given  us  to  choose  conditions  freely,  it  has  com- 
pensations of  its  own.  The  satisfaction  that  comes  from 
measuring  oneself  against  hostile  forces  never  quite  sub- 
ject to  us  is  no  unimportant  ingredient  of  happiness.  A 
Stoic  exercise  of  the  will,  in  the  resolute  determination  to 
keep  the  conditions  of  happiness  under  our  own  control, 
and  not  to  be  defeated  by  the  chances  of  existence,  belongs 
thus  unavoidably  to  the  rational  life,  and  only  becomes  a 
partisan  program  when  it  violates  its  own  spirit  by  tim- 
idly refusing  to  run  any  risk  of  defeat  through  aiming 
at  a  positive  content  of  good.  The  danger  of  Stoicism 
lies  in  the  temptation  to  too  low  an  estimate  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  happiness.  The  true  Stoic  ideal  would  lead  us, 
without  letting  up  our  effort,  to  insure  ourselves  against 
the  bitterness  that  comes  from  a  discovery  that  we  are 
asking  for  more  than  fate  will  grant,  rather  than  encour- 


THE  GOOD  AND  PLEASURE  51 

age  us  to  ask  for  less  than  we  might  really  get  through 
fear  of  a  refusal.  And  for  a  being  such  as  man  there  is 
even  something,  too,  in  the  mere  facing  of  reality,  in  the 
recognition  and  acceptance  of  the  fact  that  this  is  so, 
which  helps  to  take  away  the  sting  of  its  unpleasantness. 
No  one  who  aspires  to  be  rational  would  want  to  escape 
unhappiness  if  it  meant  deceiving  himself,  and  living  in  a 
fool's  paradise.  So  long  as  man  remains  conscious  of  the 
dark  background  of  existence,  and  of  the  precariousness 
of  the  good  life,  his  sense  for  realities  will  not  leave  him 
"content"  while  trying  to  ignore  this,  and  to  keep  experi- 
ence untouched  by  anything  that  is  harsh  and  painful. 


CHAPTER  III 

:  "OUGHT' 

The  Problem  of  Morality. — From  the  standpoint  of  a 
thoroughgoing  naturalistic  ideal  it  might  seem  possible 
to  stop  the  analysis  here.  But  to  do  so  would  be  to  lay 
oneself  open  to  objection  from  critics  of  a  more  moralistic 
temper.  So  far,  it  will  be  said,  your  account  may  possibly 
.be  correct  enough,  except  for  the  fact  that  it  misses  the 
main  point ;  it  is  the  play  with  Hamlet  left  out.  One-  can 
understand  that,  with  given  facts  of  human  nature  pre- 
supposed, men  may  set  about  endeavoring  to  realize  their 
native  impulses  and  desires.  But  what  are  you  going  to 
reply  to  a  man  if  he  tells  you  that  he  does  not  happen  to 
take  any  interest  in  the  sort  of  thing  that  you  yourself 
call  good  ?  Then  by  definition  he  is  absolved  from  adopt- 
ing that  particular  way  of  life ;  and  there  is  nothing  you 
are  theoretically  justified  in  doing  except  to  recognize 
that  tastes  differ.  ^BStot'tJie^arliole  essence  of  morality  is,\ 
uii  tin'  rnntii'iTji,  that  certain  things  are  good,  and  others  \ 
bad,  whether  or  not  a  given  man  happens  to  think  them  so.  / 
If  he  does  not  want  the  particular  e««t  that  men  agree  ij/ 
calling  moral,  he  ought  to  want  it,  and  we  condemn  him 
in  consequence.  This  word  "ought"  we  have  not  as  yet 
considered;  but  it  is  plain  that  it  is  a  vital  part  of  the 
situation. 

To  avoid  constant  risk  of  ambiguity,  there  is  one  mean- 
ing of  the  word  which  needs  first  to  be  distinguished,  and 
excluded  from  the  specifically  ethical  form  of  the  problem. 

This  is  the  logical  "ought."    I  frequently  say  that  I  ought 

52 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      5£ 

to  do  so  and  so,  meaning  no  more  than  that  the  act  in 
question  is  logically  bound  up  with  some  end  to  which  I 
am  committed.  Usually  we  have  no  difficulty  in  distin- 
guishing our  feeling  that  something  has  to  be  done  which 
we  may  not  like  because  it  is  necessary  to  the  attainment 
of  a  purpose,  from  the  moral  situation  proper  where  the 
problem  is  rather  one  of  deciding  what  the  end  itself  is  to 
be,  and  where,  accordingly,  the  sense  that  we  "ought"  to 
prefer  one  end  rather  than  another  is  not  reducible  to  the 
logical  ought  that  holds  only  between  end  and  means.  I 
want,  for  example,  to  take  a  vacation,  and  I  find  that, 
with  this  in  view,  I  "ought"  to  give  up  some  other  form 
of  gratification,  since  I  cannot  afford  them  both.  This 
alternative  pleasure  I  shall  regret.  But  I  regard  its 
rejection  simply  as  an  unfortunate  necessity,  and  not  as 
a  moral  duty.  And  if,  as  is  quite  possible,  I  later  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  I  really  want  the  other  pleasure 
more  than  I  wa»t  the  holiday,  I  shall  choose  it  without 
any  sense  of  moral  delinquency.  The  logical  "ought" 
thus  raises  the  point  of  expediency  only,  and  concerns 
itself  solely  with  what  I  do  desire,  and  the  means  to  its 
attainment;  morality  asks  the  question,  What  ought  I 
to  desire?  or,  What  end  is  it  my  duty  to  choose? 

The  special  problem  left  for  ethical  theory  is  accord- 
ingly :  Whence  arises  the  sense  of  compulsion  which  applies 
to  ends  rather  than  to  means,  and  which  does  not  get  its 
force  therefore  from  a  logical  relationship  to  some  more 
ultimate  end  already  accepted  as  valid?  A  logical  "ought" 
rests  upon  a  "because" ;  it  always  leads  to  another  "why." 
If  when  I  inquire,  Why  should  I  tell  the  truth?  you 
answer,  Because  it  contributes  to  the  general  welfare,  I 
have  at  once  a  right  to  ask  the  question,  But  why  ought 
I  to  consider  the  general  welfare?  And  if  to  this  you 
give  some  further  answer — because,  let  us  say,  it  is  essen- 


54  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

tial  to  a  rational  human  life — I  can  again  fairly  ask, 
And  why  ought  I  to  be  rational?  A  final  answer  must 
involve  something  more  than  logical  connection.  Nor 
can  we  stop  with  the  mere  brute  existence  of  some  de- 
sired end  on  which  logical  necessity  is  based.  The  fact 
that  I  do  have  a  given  desire  is  never  enough  to  explain 
why  I  feel  I  ought  to  have  it,  though  tf  I  have  it,  it  may 
lend  hypothetical  necessity  to  whatever  is  logically  sub- 
ordinate to  its  attainment. 

This  reference  to  the  logical  as  distinct  from  the  ethical 
"ought"  may  serve,  however,  to  direct  attention  to  one 
preliminary  feature  of  the  latter.  It  is  an  empirical  char- 
acteristic of  conscience,  or  the  sense  of  duty,  that  in  its 
ordinary  workings  the  ground  of  obligation  is  not  clearly 
present  as  an  intellectual  or  logical  form  of  consciousness. 
If  I  recognize  expressly  that  my  respect  for  the  life  and 
property  of  my  neighbor  is  due  to  fear  of  the  police,  I  do 
not  any  longer  call  this  a  sense  of  duty;  it  is  a  case  of 
expediency.  "Conscience"  takes  the  form,  not  of  a  recog- 
nized connection  of  premise  and  conclusion,  but  of  a  sub- 
conscious process  that  comes  into  the  open  just  as  the 
sense  of  constraint  itself.  And  it  is  not  impossible, 
accordingly,  that  an  act  which  originally  was  performed 
intentionally  for  reasons  shown,  might  come  to  be  called 
a  case  of  conscience,  if  it  were  once  to  develop  into  a 
settled  habit  that  no  longer  needed  conscious  reason  as 
a  motive  force. 

The  Social  Theory  of  Obligation. — One  very  influential 
theory  of  conscience,  in  modern  times,  takes  this  for  its 
starting  point.  The  first  aspect  likely  to  impress  the 
philosopher,  as  he  examines  the  facts  of  conscience,  is 
this  spontaneous  and  unreflective  disposition  to  hold  back 
from  certain  forms  of  conduct,  with  the  accompanying 
uneasiness  of  mind  at  the  thought  of  violating  the  inhibi- 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      55 

tion.  And  a  psychological  ground  for  this  can  apparently 
be  found  in  the  nature  of  that  fact  of  custom  which 
undoubtedly  plays  a  large  part  in  the  development  of 
primitive  morality.  A  distinctive  mark  of  custom,  taken 
as  a  form  of  conscious  experience,  is  the  way  in  which 
the  customary  is  felt  to  be  "proper,"  while  the  unfamiliar 
in  conduct  carries  with  it  a  touch  of  the  disreputable. 
To  account  for  this,  we  may  notice,  first,  that  the  mere 
set  of  the  organism  in  a  determinate  direction  not  only 
renders  action  along  this  line  the  natural  form  for  action 
to  take,  while  deviations  from  it  are  performed  less 
effectively  and  with  greater  need  for  effort,  but  also 
thinking  about  the  act  is  easier  and  more  comfortable, 
since  thinking,  as  well  as  action,  likes  to  take  the  easiest 
path.  Now  it  is  a  well  established  fact  that  any  idea  that 
persistently  fixes  itself  in  the  mind  tends  to  express  itself 
in  action.  And  since  the  reason  for  this  lies  not  in  the 
realm  of  conscious  intelligence  but  in  the  subconscious 
background,  when  the  individual  comes  to  realize  that  he 
thus  is  being  pressed  forward  in  a  determinate  direction 
he  will  feel  it,  to  begin  with,  as  an  unmotived  sense  of 
inner  compulsion. 

A  striking  illustration  is  furnished  by  the  phenomena 
of  hypnotism.  When  a  subject  is  in  the  hypnotic  state 
it  is  frequently  possible,  by  suggesting  to  him  that  at 
some  time  in  the  future  he  is  to  perform  a  certain  act,  to 
cause  him  when  the  time  arrives  to  grow  uneasy,  and  to 
feel  himself  impelled  in  the  direction  of  the  suggested  act 
without  in  the  least  knowing  why.  The  same  sort  of  fact, 
in  the  literature  of  the  Freudian  "wish,"  is  used  to  account 
for  the  greater  portion  of  the  life  of  conduct,  almost  to 
the  exclusion  of  conscious  and  rational  motivation  alto- 
gether. And  if  we  add  to  this  sense  of  felt  compulsion 
that  habit  carries  with  it  a  recognition  that  other  people 


56  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

also  feel  the  same  way,  we  shall  have  essentially  the  expe- 
rience describable  as  a  feeling  that  certain  forms  of 
conduct  are  "proper,"  and  so  ought  to  be  followed.  The 
same  sort  of  explanation  can  be  applied  also  to  that 
negative  feature  of  the  situation  which  is  specially  char- 
acteristic of  the  moral  experience.  And  when  custom 
takes  the  shape  of  a  prohibition,  or  taboo,  of  acts  toward 
which  private  inclination  might  draw  us,  inclination  thus 
finding  itself  opposed  by  the  combined  force  of  habit  and 
of  public  condemnation,  the  outcome  may  be  thought  to 
constitute  a  fairly  adequate  account  of  "conscience"  in 
its  cruder  popular  form.  Conscience  is,  namely,  the  spon- 
taneous feeling  against  such  acts  as  violate  social  custom, 
in  an  individual  who  shares  in  this  immediate  customary 
restraint. 

It  only  remains  to  add  an  explanation  of  the  way  in 
which  social  custom  gets  established  in  a  form  to  involve 
constraint  upon  individual  inclination,  to  have  what  may 
seem  a  full-fledged  theory  of  moral  obligation.  The  work 
has  been  done  very  thoroughly  by  the  social  philosophers, 
notably  by  Herbert  Spencer.  Spencer  finds  three  great 
agencies  responsible  for  the  creation  in  man  of  this  habit 
of  social  subservience — priest,  policeman,  and  public 
opinion.  The  repressive  agencies  of  society  which  punish 
a  violation  of  what  the  tribe  approves,  the  fear  of  super- 
natural harm,  also  exploited  for  the  most  part  in  the 
interests  of  public  authority,  and  the  natural  disinclina- 
tion to  brave  the  ill  will  and  dislike  of  our  fellows,  grad- 
ually build  up  a  mental  attitude  which,  immediately  and 
without  conscious  thought  of  sanctions,  awakens  in  the 
presence  of  the  appropriate  situation,  and,  as  a  sense  of 
moral  restraint,  keeps  desire  within  the  bounds  of  the 
mores,  or  habitual  social  customs  of  the  group. 

That  such  influences  as  these  are  actually  at  work  from 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      57 

the  very  beginnings  of  human  life,  and  that  customs  do 
arise  that  act  in  the  manner  described,  there  can  hardly 
be  a  question.  But  if  this  is  all  we  mean  by  oughtness,  the 
theory  suffers  from  one  serious  practical  drawback.  The 
hold  of  duty  as  such  upon  us  depends  largely  upon  our 
remaining  in  ignorance  of  its  natural  history.  Custom 
may,  and  clearly  it  does,  actually  influence  our  conduct. 
But  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  that  custom  itself  sup^ 
plies  why  it  ought  to  influence  us ;  and  accordingly  when 
conscience  is  once  recognized  as  custom  its  power  dis- 
appears, except  in  so  far  as  we  still  find  ourselves  wanting 
the  consequences  which  it  served  to  promote.  If  on 
reflection  I  decide  that  I  prefer  to  avoid  the  risk  of  jail, 
or  that  I  desire  the  good  opinion  of  the  world,  more  than 
I  want  this  forbidden  thing,  I  will  acquiesce  in  custom 
and  my  conscience.  But  there  is  no  reason  at  all  why  I 
should  continue  to  do  this  in  case  I  find  that  I  do  not 
care  for  these  things  more.  All  the  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion from  which  duty  is  supposed  to  arise  are  purely 
utilitarian  and  non-moral;  and  out  of  the  non-moral  no 
moral  obligation  can  be  manufactured  that  stands  the 
test  of  reason.  The  source  of  obligatoriness,  as  con- 
trasted with  inclination,  goes  back  to  an  outer  repressive 
force ;  and  while  we  may  have  to  submit  to  force,  we  can 
recognize  no  duty  in  the  matter. 

The  habit  we  originally  are  forced  into  forming  may 
indeed,  when  it  is  once  formed,  carry  with  it  a  sense  of 
inner  compulsion  which  will  persist  so  long  as  the  habitual 
tendency  persists,  and  perhaps  even  after  we  become  psy- 
chologists and  understand  it.  Few  persons  can  break 
a  taboo — in  connection,  say,  with  Sunday  keeping — in 
which  they  have  become  thoroughly  indoctrinated,  without 
continuing  for  a  time  to  feel  a  vague  sense  of  mental  dis- 
comfort, even  though  they  may  be  fully  persuaded  that 


58  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

they  have  a  perfect  moral  right  to  do  as  they  please  in  the 
matter.  But  as  reasonable  beings,  nevertheless,  the  only 
judgment  we  can  pronounce  upon  habit  and  its  power 
of  compulsion  is  that  it  is  a  non-moral  and  physiological 
fact ;  if  habits  are  to  be  rationally  acquiesced  in,  it  is 
not  because  they  are  habits,  but  because  for  independent 
reasons  we  consider  them  good  habits.  In  other  words, 
again,  conscience,  as  custom,  retains  its  obligatoriness 
only  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  translated  into  a  logical  or 
hypothetical  ought.  If  I  want  the  end  which  it  serves,  I 
must  continue  to  act  as  conscience  demands.  But  this 
gives  me  no  right  to  say  that  I  ought  to  have  a  desire  if 
I  do  not  have  it,  or  that  I  ought  not  to  have  one  that  is 
actually  there. 

The  trouble  with  this  outcome  is  that  it  does  not  seem 
to  express  either  the  facts  or  the  needs  of  human  life.  It 
leaves  us  in  a  position  that  would  be  tolerable  only  in 
case  we  were  quite  clear  about  what  we  wanted,  and  the 
only  problem  left  us  was  to  find  ways  and  means ;  it  does 
not  help  in  the  more  pressing  task  of  deciding  the  relative 
worth  of  ends  that  still  continue  to  conflict.  We  still  are 
confronted  with  a  variety  of  aims,  with  no  way  of  ranking 
them  other  than  in  terms  of  the  relative  strength  of  their 
appeal  to  desire;  there  is  nothing  that  enables  us  to  say, 
as  morality  certainly  tries  to  say,  that  one  is  better  than 
another.  And  in  point  of  fact,  too,  the  elimination  of  cus- 
tom as  an  authoritative  guide  does  not  seem  actually  to 
destroy  the  feeling  of  obligation,  as  apparently  it  should 
do  if  the  theory  is  complete.  On  the  contrary,  the  more 
enlightened  the  conscience  the  more  sensitive  it  becomes  to 
moral  distinctions,  and  the  stronger  may  grow  its  assur- 
ance that  it  is  right  in  its  judgments  of  relative  worth. 

And  this  reference  to  the  enlightened  conscience  sug- 
gests another  point  that  can  be  raised  against  a  doctrine 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      59 

which  reduces  conscience  wholly  to  conduct  that  is  socially 
approved  or  ordered.  What  are  we  to  make  of  the  fact 
that,  in  its  higher  reaches,  conscience  not  infrequently 
sets  itself  against  the  common  judgment,  and  condemns 
the  very  thing  on  which  it  is  supposed  to  rest?  It  is 
indisputable  that  a  man  may  feel  under  a  genuine  sense 
of  obligation  to  stand  up  for  some  new  insight  against 
the  accepted  opinion  of  the  world ;  and  the  fact  that  the 
weight  of  public  disapproval,  and  perhaps  of  sterner 
forms  of  public  reprisal,  is  now  cast  on  the  side  of  what 
he  considers  not  to  be  his  duty,  is  certainly  a  thing  that 
calls  for  explanation.  How  does  a  conscience  growing  out 
of  submission  to  the  common  opinion  come  to  turn  directly 
against  this?  It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  we  turn  to  an 
ideal  audience,  and  back  our  judgment  by  appealing  to 
what  public  opinion  would  be  if  it  were  wiser  and  more 
instructed.  We  are  indeed  very  likely  to  do  this ;  but  it 
is  an  effect  and  not  a  cause.  A  public  that  does  not  yet 
exist  can  exercise  no  repressive  force,  and  so  has  no  par- 
ticular pertinency  to  a  theory  which  identifies  conscience 
with  social  restraint.  And  evidently  in  point  of  fact  we 
do  not  suppose  the  thing  to  be  right  for  the  reason  that 
succeeding  generations  will  call  it  so ;  we  believe  they  will 
pass  this  judgment  only  because,  independently  of  any 
public  pressure  whatever,  we  are  so  thoroughly  convinced 
ourselves  that  it  is  right. 

It  ought  once  more  to  be  made  clear,  perhaps,  that 
I  am  not  intending  to  deny  the  truth,  up  to  a  point,  of 
the  social  theory  of  obligation.  Conceptions  of  duty  are 
without  a  doubt  shaped  very  largely  by  the  influence  of 
our  social  surroundings;  and  the  habits  thus  set  up  are 
sufficient  to  account  in  part  for  the  unreasoning  sense 
of  compulsion  that  attends  the  exercise  of  conscience. 
Moreover,  in  so  far  as  these  habits  are  in  line  with  gen- 


60  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

uine  human  needs,  the  automatic  compulsion  they  exert  is 
practically  useful.  An  important  element  even  in  the 
developed  conscience  is  the  constraint  exercised  over  us 
by  desired  ends  in  so  far  as  they  have  become  customary, 
and  so  are  only  vaguely  and  subconsciously  recognized  as 
objects  of  desire;  and  by  bringing  this  relation  to  desire 
before  the  mind,  we  are  able  to  give  a  rational  justifica- 
tion for  the  attendant  feeling  which  helps  still  more  to 
strengthen  useful  habit.  These  desirable  ends  set  up,  too, 
a  secondary  habit — the  intellectual  habit  of  approving 
them;  and  this  also  works  automatically  to  resist  their 
violation.  The  only  point  I  am  trying  to  make  is,  that 
this  possibility  of  justification  does  presuppose  always 
positive  desire.  And  unless  I  find  that  I  want  the  end 
which  social  custom  prescribes,  there  is  no  reason  left,  so 
far  as  the  theory  tells  us,  why  I  should  any  longer  submit 
to  restraint.  This,  once  more,  seems  to  leave  the  rational 
man  with  no  allegiance  due  to  any  "ought"  except  the 
ought  involved  in  a  necessary  relation  of  means  to  end. 
But  empirically  the  moral  consciousness  is  not  satisfied 
with  this.  In  the  sense  of  duty  I  seem  to  feel  precisely 
this,  that  the  thing  which  I  am  sensible  of  wanting  most 
is  not  the  thing  I  ought  to  want.  And  unless  I  can  find 
the  source  of  this  "ought"  in  something  more  substantial 
than  the  physiological  compulsion  that  attends  habit,  it 
seems  to  undermine  such  a  conviction,  and  to  leave  my 
recognition  of  the  value  of  ends  dependent  solely  on  the 
strength  of  personal  desire. 

Kant's  Theory  of  Obligation. — Before  proceeding  fur- 
ther in  the  attempt  to  analyze  this  demand,  it  will  be 
convenient  to  examine  a  theory  of  conscience  which  goes 
to  the  opposite  extreme  from  the  preceding  one,  and  tries 
to  save  the  absolute  and  objective  character  of  duty  by 
denying  entirely  its  dependence  on  the  empirical  self  or 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      61 

on  desire.  The  form  which  this  has  most  frequently  taken 
in  popular  thought  is  that  of  a  divine  voice  speaking  to 
man  from  within,  which  tells  him  infallibly,  apart  from 
experience  and  a  calculation  of  consequences,  just  where 
right  and  wrong  lie.  In  this  crude  interpretation  the 
theory  is  now  largely  abandoned  by  theorists,  and  there- 
fore it  will  not  be  necessary  to  examine  it  critically.  Its 
philosophical  essence,  however,  has  come  to  play  a  large 
part  in  latter-day  ethical  discussion  through  its  adoption 
in  a  very  subtle  form  by  the  philosopher  Kant,  whose 
influence  on  modern  thought  has  everywhere  been  extra- 
ordinarily great. 

The  initial  point  of  significance  in  Kant's  contention 
lies,  in  contrast  with  the  evolutionary  theory,  in  his  full 
conviction  that  moral  good  is  objectively  valid,  and  that 
it  has  a  hold  upon  us  which  is  unconditionally  and  cate- 
gorically necessary.  It  can  scarcely  be  disputed  that  the 
plain  man's  conscience  seems  to  say  to  him,  not  that  there 
are  certain  things  he  must  not  do  if  he  wants  to  attain 
his  desires,  or  escape  unpleasant  consequences,  but,  sim- 
ply, that  he  must  not  do  them.  The  evolutionary 
explanation,  it  has  appeared,  tends  to  abandon  this  nat- 
ural moral  claim.  For  rationally  justifying  the  dictates 
of  conscience  it  leaves  us  with  a  hypothetical  imperative 
only.  If  you  want  to  keep  out  of  jail,  or  go  to  heaven,  or 
retain  a  good  reputation  with  your  neighbors,  you  must 
do  so  and  so;  but  if  you  do  not  want  these  things,  you 
are  logically  left  free  to  act  as  you  please.  In  case  a  man 
desires  to  keep  his  old  conviction  that  there  is  something 
more  absolute  than  this  in  moral  obligation,  the  best  the 
theory  can  do  is  to  leave  him  in  his  original  happy  ignor- 
ance, where  custom  works  unrestrained  by  insight  into 
reasons  why,  while  having  nevertheless  to  admit  that  if 
duty  thus  is  psychologically  absolute  it  is  also  perfectly 


62  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

irrational,  and  that  the  object  of  moral  condemnation 
remains  in  the  end  everywhere  on  a  par,  logically,  with 
eating  with  one's  knife,  or  attending  a  reception  in  a 
business  suit,  or  with  any  of  the  other  things  that  we 
refrain  from  doing  simply  because  they  aren't  done. 

Kant's  adoption  of  a  starting  point  accordingly  is  due 
to  perfectly  plain  and  simple  considerations;  so  far,  he 
really  is  more  empirical  than  the  empiricists.  The  evo- 
lutionist has  said  in  effect:  Here  is  an  aspect  of  ethical 
experience  which  does  not  fit  in  with  my  understanding 
of  the  world ;  therefore  I  shall  proceed  to  explain  it  away. 
To  which  it  is  open  to  reply:  Are  you  really  ready  to 
take  the  consequences?  If  indeed  a  man  is  prepared  to 
abandon  the  ethical  judgment  of  mankind  in  favor  of  a 
scientific  theory,  there  is  probably  nothing  to  be  done 
except  to  ask  him  to  be  clear-headed  enough  to  recognize 
the  real  nature  of  his  proceeding,  and  not  to  continue  to 
talk  in  terms  of  duty  after  he  has  left  out  the  essential 
thing  that  duty  has  always  meant.  Meanwhile  Kant  holds 
it  more  philosophical  to  accept  the  analysis  of  the  ethical 
experience  at  its  face  value,  and  then  go  on  to  consider 
what  consequences  this  implies,  instead  of  using  our  a 
priori  philosophies  to  settle  whether  or  not  we  shall  admit 
recognized  moral  claims.  As  in  his  theoretical  philosophy 
Kant  takes  for  granted  the  fact  of  causality  as  necessary 
in  order  that  we  should  have  any  connected  experience 
to  begin  with,  and  then  proceeds  to  ask  in  what  sort  of  a 
world  causality  can  intelligibly  be  thought  as  having  a 
place,  so  he  may  be  regarded  as  pointing  to  the  fact  of 
duty  as  necessary  if  experience  is  to  have  any  significance 
for  human  beings.  And  some  significance  in  the  world, 
some  real  distinctions  of  value  that  lay  constraint  upon 
his  will,  no  man  can  very  well  help  accepting. 

The  first  question  is,  then,  a  question  of  fact;    have 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"     63 

we  here  a  genuine  feature  in  the  moral  judgment?  Of 
this,  as  has  been  said,  Kant  entertains  no  doubt  at  all.  It 
does  not  excuse  a  man  for  gratifying  a  vicious  taste  that 
he  should  proclaim  a  readiness  to  take  the  consequences; 
you  ought  not,  we  say  to  him,  to  have  the  taste,  or,  if  you 
do  have  it,  to  indulge  it.  The  ought  is  absolute  and  uni- 
versal, and  not  at  all  contingent  on  what  a  particular 
man  happens  to  like.  So  far  this  may  be  regarded  as 
simply  a  recognition  of  the  logic  implicit  in  the  feeling  of 
the  ought.  In  saying  that  we  ought  not  to  have  certain 
desires — and  common  morality  does  say  this  unhesitat- 
ingly— we  seem  to  suggest  that  oughtness,  since  it  passes 
judgment  on  desire,  cannot  be  reduced  to  desire  or  devel- 
oped out  of  it.  Desire  appears  to  be  in  some  interpreta- 
tion outside  the  moral  situation,  the  object  of  legislation 
and  not  its  source.  But  when  we  turn  to  the  further 
and  distinctive  aspects  of  the  Kantian  theory,  judgment 
is  likely  to  become  more  hesitant.  Setting  out  in  con- 
formity with  the  moral  conviction  of  common  sense,  it 
turns  this  to  a  use  that  soon  leaves  common  opinion  far 
behind,  and  that  issues  in  a  series  of  ethical  paradoxes. 
The  source  of  this  divergence  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  Kant  does  not  simply  recognize  oughtness  as  a  con- 
stituent part  of  the  ethical  experience,  but  takes  it  as  the 
whole  of  ethics;  duty,  and  not  the  good,  becomes  the 
ultimate  ethical  concept.  This  statement  is  perhaps  not 
strictly  accurate,  since  Kant  does  make  duty  from  a 
certain  standpoint  derivative,  and  good  an  ultimate  fact. 
His  theory  presupposes  one  thing  which  is  absolutely 
good — a  will  which  wills  universal  law.  And  since,  if  man 
were  a  purely  rational  being  and  not  immersed  also  in  the 
world  of  sense,  he  would  will  this  as  a  matter  of  course 
without  compulsion,  the  sense  of  duty  belongs  in  a  way  to 
phenomenal  experience.  We  feel  obligation  only  when 


64  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  true  or  rational  self,  as  willing  law,  comes  in  conflict 
with  the  empirical  self  which  is  subject  to  inclination  or 
desire.  But  while  the  element  of  constraint  is  thus  sec- 
ondary, the  essential  character  of  duty  as  law  remains 
ultimate.  And  if  this  fact  of  rational  and  necessary  law 
is  called  "good,"  such  a  claim  at  least  cannot  be  intended 
to  subordinate  it  in  any  way  to  a  higher  category.  Of 
course  as  a  matter  of  fact  Kant  is  here  picking  out  the 
one  thing  in  the  world  which  to  him  personally,  as  a  ration- 
alistic philosopher,  appeals  as  most  admirable — abstract 
rational  necessity — and  taking  it  as  self-evidently  good 
without  concerning  himself  to  raise  the  question  "why"; 
otherwise  he  would  have  had  to  explain  how  this  fact  of 
approval  on  his  part,  and  how  the  "respect"  for  the  law 
which  he  leaves  as  the  only  moral  motive,  differ  from  other 
cases  of  approval  and  motivation  which  he  has  set  aside 
as  merely  empirical. 

Meanwhile  it  is  true  that  if,  for  the  complete  moral 
experience,  we  have  to  wait  for  the  introduction  of  a 
sense  of  duty,  then  of  morality  in  this  final  and  distin- 
guishing sense  duty  is  the  special  and  characteristic 
feature.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  present  volume,  how- 
ever, that  duty  is  only  one  aspect  of  a  larger  ethical 
situation.  The  ultimate  definition  of  ethics  is  in  terms 
of  a  satisfying  life;  and  duty  is  to  be  interpreted  as 
somehow  incidental  to  man's  endeavor  to  reach  this  goal, 
and  not  as  the  violent  intrusion  of  a  new  end  which  alters 
the  whole  nature  of  the  problem.  For  Kant,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  moment  a  question  of  duty  comes  in,  man's  life 
has  taken  a  new  tack;  he  has  passed  from  the  purely 
naturalistic  quest  for  happiness  to  what  for  the  first  time 
belongs  to  ethics.  And  the  consequence  is  that  for  set- 
tling this  new  problem  he  is  constrained  from  using  any 
of  the  material  of  the  natural  life.  This  is  all  of  it  contin- 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      65 

gent — a  sort  of  fact  we  simply  find  is  so  without  seeing 
any  reason  why  it  might  not  be  quite  otherwise.  But  the 
essence  of  morality  is  that  it  is  universal;  and  you  can 
never,  Kant  holds,  draw  a  universal  truth  from  any  con- 
ceivable number  of  empirical  facts.  From  experience  you 
may  derive  a  rule  of  expediency,  and  get  the  right  to  say 
that  a  given  course  of  conduct  will  probably  have  certain 
desirable  consequences;  you  can  never  say  categorically 
that  it  ought  always  to  be  followed. 

Desire  then  is  of  no  service  for  identifying  the  good, 
since  desire  has  been  left  behind.  Equally  it  can  furnish 
no  motive  to  moral  action.  The  morality  even  of  a  good 
act  is  compromised  if  we  are  attracted  toward  it  and 
want  to  do  it ;  we  must  act  simply  out  of  respect  for  the 
law  of  duty  as  such  if  we  are  to  be  genuinely  moral. 
Kant's  problem  is  accordingly  to  deduce  the  material  of 
the  moral  life  from  this  abstraction  of  duty — to  define 
a  concrete  moral  end  which  is  not  given  empirically  by 
human  nature  and  its  needs,  but  is  spun  out  of  the  bare 
recognition  that  there  is  a  universal  law  imposing  obliga- 
tion on  us. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case  the  task  must  appear  a  rather 
hopeless  one.  To  one  at  least  who  thinks  that  duty  is 
only  a  partial  aspect  of  a  situation,  it  will  not  seem  rea- 
sonable to  expect  to  reconstruct  the  whole  situation  out 
of  this  aspect  alone.  Kant  does  what  he  can  however ;  and 
as  a  tour  de  force  his  effort  is  impressive.  Since  univer- 
sality is  the  essence  of  the  moral  judgment,  and  since  the 
will  has  been  deprived  of  dependence  on  any  external  im- 
pulse, there  remains  nothing  to  serve  the  will  as  a  principle 
except  the  universal  conformity  of  its  acts  to  law  in 
general ;  that  is,  I  am  never  to  act  otherwise  than  so  that 
I  could  also  will  that  my  maxim  should  become  a  universal 
law.  An  end  defined  by  reason  alone  must  be  true  for  all 


66  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

rational  beings.  Of  any  proposed  course  of  action,  there- 
fore, a  man  has  to  inquire,  Can  this  be  turned  into  a  law 
for  all  men  and  all  occasions?  If  so,  it  is  right;  and  thus 
a  concrete  filling  is  given  to  the  abstract  notion  of  duty, 
without  needing  to  call  in  the  empirical  facts  of  desire. 
If  for  example  a  man  wants  to  find  out  whether  a  lying 
promise  is  consistent  with  duty,  the  short  and  infallible 
way  is  to  ask  himself,  Should  I  be  content  for  my  con- 
duct to  hold  good  as  a  universal  law?  Am  I  ready  to  say 
that  any  one  may  make  a  deceitful  promise  when  he  finds 
himself  in  a  difficulty  from  which  he  cannot  otherwise 
extricate  himself?  "Then  I  presently  become  aware  that 
while  I  can  will  the  lie,  I  can  by  no  means  will  that  lying 
should  be  a  universal  law.  For  with  such  a  law  there 
would  be  no  promises  at  all,  since  it  would  be  in  vain  to 
allege  my  intention  in  regard  to  my  future  actions  to 
those  who  would  not  believe  this  allegation,  or  if  they 
overhastily  did  so  would  pay  me  back  in  my  own  coin." 
Any  act  which,  if  universalized,  is  necessarily  self-defeat- 
ing, is  thereby  condemned  by  reason.  Or  if  we  allow  the 
Tightness  of  truth-telling  as  a  general  rule,  but  claim  an 
exception  on  our  own  behalf,  we  fall  equally  into  a  con- 
tradiction. By  calling  it  right  we  implicitly  assign  it 
universality ;  whereas  in  practice  we  are  taking  it  as  if  it 
were  not  universal,  but  admitted  of  exceptions. 

The  reply  that  will  be  at  once  forthcoming  to  this  is, 
that  while  the  principle  is  a  useful  tool  for  the  moral  life 
so  long  as  we  are  able  to  apply  it  to  ends  already  ac- 
cepted, it  fails  to  work  if  we  really  are  consistent  in 
presupposing  no  distinction  whatever  of  good  and  bad 
prior  to  its  application.  What  really  it  does  is,  not  to 
supply  the  content  of  the  good,  but  to  deny  the  privacy 
of  the  good  when  this  already  is  recognized.  If  moral 
law  is  universal,  this  universality  does  indeed  carry  with 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      67 

it  the  conclusion,  not  that,  as  Kant  maintains,  no  act  can 
be  moral  when  dependent  in  any  sense  upon  inclination, 
but  that  my  act  is  not  moral  if  I  am  led  by  private  in- 
clination to  make  of  myself  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  But  this  is  so  far  from  creating  the  good  out  of 
mere  universality,  that  it  implies  the  contrary. 

For  any  conduct  can  be  universalized  provided  one 
does  not  care  what  happens.  Kant  says  that  lying  cannot 
be  made  a  law  because  otherwise  promises  would  not 
continue  to  be  made.  But  why  should  promises  be  made? 
Obviously  because  we  presuppose  that  the  cooperative 
human  life,  which  requires  for  its  maintenance  a  measure 
of  good  faith,  is  itself  good  and  desirable;  and  this  we 
could  not  do  without  appealing  back  to  the  natural  basis 
of  desire  which  Kant  has  thrown  overboard.  If  we  did 
not  already  think  cooperation  good  for  something,  all  we 
should  need  to  do  would  be  to  decide  to  get  along  without 
it,  and  no  bar  to  making  lying  a  universal  law  would 
remain.  A  diplomat  might  equally  argue  that  truth-telling 
cannot  be  made  universal,  because  if  every  diplomat  spoke 
the  truth  it  would  put  a  stop  to  the  diplomatic  game; 
and  if  the  one  argument  is  not  as  good  as  the  other,  it  is 
only  because  we  are  less  assured  to  begin  with  that 
diplomacy  is  a  valuable  end.  Both  equally  involve  a  con- 
tradiction, but  in  both  cases  only  for  the  man  who  has 
already  accepted  the  end  involved.  Kant's  method  of 
procedure  will  not  work  at  all,  then,  except  as  the  uni- 
versal form  of  morality  presupposes  ends  already  taken 
as  worth  while.  And  these  ends,  since  they  are  not  reduc- 
ible to  a  purely  logical  basis,  can  be  found  only  in  con- 
nection with  the  empirical  facts  of  human  nature  which 
Kant  has  ruled  out  as  non-moral. 

Equally  impossible  to  defend  on  any  basis  that  our 
everyday  morality  can  accept  is  the  conclusion  that  the 


68  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

sole  moral  motive  is  respect  for  duty  as  such.  Naturally 
if  the  ethical  fact  in  experience  is  nothing  but  the  aspect 
of  oughtness,  an  act  done  because  we  like  to  do  it  is,  not 
of  course  wrong,  but  a  purely  non-moral  fact  of  natural 
history.  But  if  instead  we  are  willing  to  hold,  as  Kant 
was  not,  that  the  fundamental  concept  of  ethics  is  the 
goodf  conceived  as  that  which  genuinely  satisfies  human 
nature,  then  while  there  still  remains  a  chance  of  making 
duty  an  objectively  necessary  element  in  the  quest  for 
good,  and  conscientiousness  a  moral  virtue,  we  can  also 
recognize  that  the  true  end  of  life  is  not  fully  attained 
until  we  love  the  good  for  its  own  sake,  and  do  not  merely 
do  it  as  a  matter  of  conscience.  This  does  not  make  it 
necessary  to  drop  universality  from  the  idea  of  the  good. 
Its  universal  and  public  character  is  one  of  its  titles  to 
our  regard.  But  it  does  imply  that  in  so  far  as  this  comes 
home  to  our  feeling  merely  as  a  law  constraining  us,  and 
is  not  merged  in  the  concrete  goodness  of  its  setting,  we 
have  only  reached  a  half-way  house  in  the  moral  life. 

The  Nature  of  the  Problem. — If  then  it  appears  that 
the  attempt  to  ground  the  objective  character  of  duty  in 
the  transcendental  and  the  a  priori  is  a  failure,  it  remains 
to  turn  back  to  the  empirical  field  of  human  nature,  and 
ask  whether  here  some  element  has  not  been  overlooked 
that  will  help  to  remedy  the  deficiencies  in  the  "social" 
theory  of  conscience.  The  general  logic  of  the  situation 
is  fairly  simple.  What  we  are  after  is  a  source  for  the 
negative  feeling  of  compulsion — as  distinct  from  positive 
desire — which  will  stand  the  test  of  a  critical  scrutiny; 
and  one  which,  also,  does  not  reduce  itself  to  the  merely 
logical  relation  of  means  to  end.  The  difficulty  in  making 
habit  responsible  lay  in  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  in 
habit  as  such  to  protect  it  against  disintegrating  criti- 
cism. If  accordingly  we  were  to  find  some  element  of 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      69 

human  nature  that  is  natural  rather  than  artificial,  and 
that  proves  itself  an  integral  part  of  us  through  the 
refusal  to  disappear,  or  to  abate  its  pretensions,  when  it 
is  brought  to  consciousness,  a  discovery  of  its  influence 
need  not  have  the  same  effect  as  in  the  case  of  habit. 
Provided  always  we  can  presuppose  a  healthy  confidence 
in  the  validity  and  significance  of  our  natural  tenden- 
cies— and  without  this  no  positive  belief  is  possible  in 
any  line — then  the  locating  of  the  ground  of  belief  in 
the  structure  of  our  constitution  ought  logically  to 
strengthen  its  claims. 

In  order  to  determine  the  possibility  of  such  a  solution 
we  need  to  return  to  the  empirical  facts,  and  ask  again 
just  how  the  conception  of  the  moral  good — the  good 
that  "ought  to  be  chosen" — differs  from  the  more  general 
notion  of  the  good.  Suppose  I  want  very  much  some 
personal  gratification — unquestionably  in  itself  a  good — 
but  know  that  it  is  going  to  entail  serious  injury  to  other 
people.  The  ordinary  use  of  language  scarcely  justifies 
me  in  saying  that  my  active  desire  for  these  other  men's 
good  is  more  intense  than  my  personal  craving.  In  pro- 
portion as  this  last  engages  me,  is  any  competing  claim 
likely  to  impress  me  as  a  nuisance  rather  than  a  potential 
satisfaction  of  desire.  Nevertheless  even  when  the  social 
claim  is  felt  as  contrary  to  desire,  no  normal  moral  nature 
can,  on  reflection,  well  avoid  assigning  it  a  superior  rank. 
Whatever  the  strength  or  weakness  of  our  personal  inter- 
est in  it,  it  is,  we  shall  probably  admit,  a  "higher"  end, 
and  "ought"  to  constrain  our  will. 

This  suggests  the  first  point  in  the  definition  of  moral 
goodness.  The  full  moral  problem,  the  problem  of  the 
ought,  involves  not  merely  the  recognition  of  goodness, 
but  also  a  comparison  of  various  claimants  to  the  title 
of  the  good — the  notion  not  of  "good"  simply,,  but  of 


70  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

"better."  A  man  enjoys  a  simple  experience  of  pleasure, 
say  the  pleasure  of  taste ;  he  can  look  back  on  it  and  call  it 
good  without  any  reference  to  a  better  at  all.  But  so  far 
no  moral  situation  has  arisen.  It  is  only  when  we  judge, 
not  that  various  things  are  good,  but  that  there  are  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  goodness,  that  our  judgment  has  the 
chance  of  becoming  in  the  distinctive  sense  an  ethical 
one,  in  which  the  conception  of  "duty"  begins  to  figure. 
What,  then,  is  the  content  of  the  word  "better"? 

The  Definition  of  "Quality." — The  first  and  simplest 
suggestion — that  better  is  nothing  but  a  quantitative 
term,  and  means,  simply,  "more  of  it" — is  already  ruled 
out  implicitly  by  the  statement  of  the  problem.  For  a 
Benthamite  theory  this  might  seem  a  possibility ;  but  it  is 
not  consistent  with  the  recognition  of  a  genuine  "ought." 
We  doubtless  do  always  prefer  more  good  to  less;  but 
I  see  no  reason  at  all,  on  the  purely  quantitative  basis, 
why  we  ought  to  prefer  it,  or  why  such  a  preference  should 
be  regarded  as  morally  right.  Suppose  I  have  a  choice  be- 
tween a  weaker  and  an  intenser  pleasure — between  eating 
one  article  of  food  which  I  like  and  another  for  which  I  do 
not  greatly  care.  I  am  not  arguing  that  I  shall  choose 
the  latter  pleasure,  for  clearly  this  is  not  the  case.  I 
only  say  I  am  not  in  the  slightest  degree  under  obliga- 
tion to  take  the  former  one,  though  by  failing  to  do  so  I 
am  reducing  by  so  much  the  content  of  possible  good  in 
the  universe.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  seems  pretty 
clear  that  "quality"  is  a  distinctive  aspect  in  experience, 
introspectively  to  be  distinguished  from  any  form  of 
quantity;  and  that  we  do  judge  certain  ends  "higher" 
than  others,  irrespective  of  any  comparison  in  terms  of 
the  amount  of  pleasure  they  yield  or  the  intensity  of 
our  desire  for  them. 

In  the  second  place,  still  in  the  way  of  exclusion,  we 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"     71 

may  rule  out  one  interpretation  of  quality  also  as 
obviously  having  no  bearing  on  the  immediate  problem. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  every  feeling  may  be  said  to  have 
its  own  peculiar  and  irreducible  "quality."  The  pleasure 
of  eating  is  one  sort  of  pleasure,  that  of  solving  a  mathe- 
matical problem  is  quite  another  sort.  This  however  is 
plainly  not  the  sense  with  which  we  are  at  present  con- 
cerned; and  in  so  far  it  gives  us  no  right  to  rank  one 
sort  as  "higher"  than  another.  Quality  in  this  elemen- 
tary sense  belongs  to  things  singly  in  their  own  right, 
whereas  betterness  is  a  relational  term,  and  emerges  only 
in  the  comparison  of  two  different  goods. 

Another  attempt  to  define  the  nature  of  quality,  of 
some  notoriety  in  the  history  of  speculative  ethics,  may 
also  be  put  aside  without  much  consideration.  Mill,  who 
has  the  distinction  among  the  hedonists  of  being  the  first 
to  recognize  unambiguously  the  distinctive  fact  of  quality, 
suggests  that  superiority  in  quality  may  mean,  simply, 
that  which  experts  agree  in  preferring.  And  it  seems  to  be 
the  case  that,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  objective  quality 
at  all,  we  are  likely  on  the  whole  to  find  it  in  the  consensus 
of  the  most  competent  human  judgment.  Even  when  I 
feel  convinced  that  my  own  private  insight  sees  more  truly 
than  any  social  judgment  yet  in  existence,  it  would  be 
difficult  for  me  to  retain  my  confidence  were  I  not  per- 
suaded that  other  men  also  would  come  to  my  opinion  if 
they  would  lay  themselves  open  to  the  right  sort  of  expe- 
rience. But  this  is  calculated  to  throw  doubt  on  the  claim 
that  an  agreement  of  experts  is  a  definition  of  superior 
quality,  though  such  an  agreement  may  often  be  a  good 
sign  that  a  given  value  judgment  is  a  correct  one.  For 
if  we  may  reach  a  true  judgment  in  advance  of  agree- 
ment, the  natural  inference  is  that  we  are  able  to  per- 
ceive some  character  not  visible  to  others ;  and  in  that 


72  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

case  the  quality  is  the  cause  of  the  agreement,  rather  than 
something  that  grows  out  of  it. 

There  is  another  possible  way  of  analyzing  quality  that 
may  next  be  suggested ;  and  this  will,  I  think,  take  us  in 
point  of  fact  a  certain  distance  toward  our  destination. 
Just  as  goodness  is  a  character  which  things  take  on  in 
so  far  as  the  thought  of  them  is  pleasant,  so  a  qualitative 
difference  will,  it  seems  to  me,  be  found  in  a  similar  fashion 
to  accompany  any  good  which  excites  in  me  that  aesthetic 
or  semi-aesthetic  feeling  of  admiration  to  which  there  has 
already  been  occasion  to  refer.  The  proof  of  such  a  claim 
is,  again,  purely  of  an  empirical  sort.  But  if  the  ex- 
periment is  made  of  comparing  two  objects,  one  of  which 
is  more  successful  in  calling  forth  our  admiration,  I  be- 
lieve it  will  be  found  impossible  to  avoid  this  sense  of  quali- 
tative superiority.  Thus  the  more  admirable  intellectual 
capacity  appears  to  any  one,  the  higher  in  kind  he  will 
almost  certainly  be  found  to  place  it  as  compared  with 
other  human  traits ;  while  the  fact  that  men  differ 
greatly  in  their  admirations,  and  that  the  feeling  is  influ- 
enced by  many  modifying  conditions,  gives  an  easy  ex- 
planation of  the  difficulty  of  arriving  at  authoritative 
judgments  about  qualitative  rank.  If  we  try  to  pick  out 
this  or  that  special  character  as  the  basis  of  our  stan- 
dard, this  impossibility  of  getting  people  to  agree  is  a 
serious  drawback.  But  if  quality  be  actually  dependent 
on  aesthetic  feeling,  such  a  feeling  may  readily  have  a 
source  that  varies  according  to  circumstances. 

But  while  in  this  way  we  may  be  enabled,  as  I  believe 
we  are,  to  assign  a  meaning  to  quality,  it  will  appear  on 
consideration  that  we  again  are  falling  short  of  a  solution 
of  our  original  problem.  For  admiration  still  is  lacking 
in  any  necessary  reference  to  that  which  constitutes  the 
central  feature  of  morality — the  feeling  of  the  ought. 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      73 

The  essence  of  the  thing,  in  the  case  of  ethical  quality, 
lies  in  the  claim  to  command  action;  and  admiration 
carries  with  it  no  such  necessary  claim.  The  connection 
with  obligation  is  indeed  often  a  very  close  one,  as  will 
perhaps  appear  more  clearly  later  on.  But  if  we  take 
that  which  is  admirable  wholly  by  itself,  and  do  not  com- 
plicate it  with  any  further  judgment,  its  separableness 
from  a  sense  of  duty  seems  fairly  evident.  My  admiration 
of  the  artist's  skill  does  not  make  it  incumbent  on  me  to 
imitate  this  skill.  Even  the  supposedly  moral  quality  of 
saintliriess  one  may  appreciate  as  admirable  without  feel- 
ing that  he  has  himself  the  gift.  So  in  general  I  admire 
instinctively  in  so  far  the  bigger  or  more  able  or  more 
energetic  man.  But  when  I  see  another  man  with  modest 
talents  who  does  his  best,  ethically  I  honor  him  equally  with 
his  more  gifted  competitor,  though  my  intellect  recognizes 
that  he  is  intrinsically  a  smaller  and,  in  intellectual  terms, 
less  admirable  man ;  and  were  he  himself,  overlooking  dif- 
ferences of  capacity,  to  take  the  goal  of  such  a  competi- 
tor as  his  own,  instead  of  paying  it  his  tribute  of  admira- 
tion simply,  it  is  likely  that  he  would  only  be  laying  up 
for  himself  the  trouble  that  always  comes  from  failing  to 
recognize  facts. 

"Moral"  Quality  and  the  Nature  of  Oughtness. — It 
still  remains  therefore  to  look  further  for  the  final  char- 
acter which  distinguishes  not  only  quality  from  quantity, 
but  moral  quality  from  the  aesthetic  quality  of  admirable- 
ness.  Now  there  is  one  additional  circumstance  that  I 
think  will  always  be  found  attaching  to  the  distinctively 
moral  experience  of  duty.  I  admire  the  strenuous  man, 
the  man  of  energy  and  effectiveness ;  but  do  I  feel  that  I 
ought  to  imitate  him  ?  I  may,  or  I  may  not ;  and  if  I  do, 
the  constitutive  nature  of  the  experience  cannot  lie  in  the 
feeling  of  admiration,  since  this  is  present  in  either  case. 


74  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

But  it  might  conceivably  be  looked  for  in  the  further 
fact  that,  in  the  former  instance,  I  have  a  feeling  of 
distaste  also  for  my  less  strenuous  self.  I  do  not  need  to 
have  this  last.  I  may  simply  recognize  that  we  are  differ- 
ently constituted,  and  go  my  own  way  serenely.  But  if 
I  have  it,  then,  it  may  be  claimed,  it  is  also  true  that  I 
shall  have  the  experience  of  feeling  that  I  ought  not  to 
rest  satisfied  with  my  lesser  effort.  For  a  man  may  fairly 
be  challenged  to  act  in  opposition  to  a  reasonable  and 
instinctive  feeling  of  dislike  or  disapprobation  without 
experiencing  some  sense  of  inner  constraint. 

That  this  element  is  often  overlooked  in  the  analysis 
of  obligation  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  so 
closely  and  so  commonly  tied  up  with  the  positive  feeling 
of  admiration.  Take,  for  example,  the  familiar  conten- 
tion that  "reason"  is  the  source  of  obligation.  It  seems 
plausible  when  we  are  told  that  we  "ought"  to  be  rational. 
We  do  feel  this  way  about  it  commonly;  and  so  it  is 
natural  to  stop  here  as  if  we  were  in  possession  of  a  final 
explanation.  But  if  we  are  inclined  to  look  to  the  admir- 
ableness  of  rationality  as  itself  explicitly  a  source  of  our 
conviction,  we  might  try  the  experiment  of  expunging  in 
imagination  from  our  attitude  all  sense  of  the  futility  and 
ignominy  of  a  life  of  folly  and  unreason,  leaving  only  a 
disinterested  admiration  of  its  opposite.  And  1  find  it 
difficult  to  suppose  that  any  feeling  of  duty  in  the  matter 
would  then  remain.  Reason  would  represent,  like  beauty, 
a  good  of  a  superior  kind.  But  if  one  chose  to  pass  it  by 
for  other  more  irrational  goods,  I  cannot  see  why  anybody 
should  deny  him  the  right  to  suit  himself.  The  same  point 
can  be  raised  about  the  attempt  to  interpret  the  claim  of 
reason  in  the  form  of  a  more  rational,  or  larger,  or  social 
self,  which  puts  restraint  upon  a  lesser  self.  This  doubt- 
less also  represents  a  fact  of  the  ethical  experience.  But 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      75 

if  obligation  stands  for  a  conflict  between  two  inner 
selves,  the  superior  right  of  one  of  these  selves  to  issue  its 
commands  has  still  to  be  accounted  for ;  why  should  not 
my  passions,  too,  say  to  my  reason  or  my  social  instincts, 
You  ought?  It  is  seldom,  as  I  have  said,  that  any  at- 
tempt is  made  to  push  further  an  analysis  of  the  claims 
of  reason.  For  the  most  part  rationalistic  philosophers 
have  themselves  been  so  infatuated  with  the  rational  life 
that  they  have  seen  no  particular  occasion  to  examine  the 
nature  of  its  credentials.  Professor  Sidgwick  however  is 
an  exception  here ;  and  it  may  be  well  to  look  more  in  detail 
at  his  position,  in  order  to  verify  the  thesis  which  I  have 
advanced. 

Sidgwick  argues  that  there  are  certain  purely  rational 
propositions  which  I  have  only  to  set  clearly  before  my 
mind  to  be  able  to  see  not  only  that  they  are  true,  but  that 
their  truth  involves  a  moral  demand  upon  me  as  well. 
Thus,  if  I  consider  the  self-evident  proposition  that  more 
good  is  better  than  less  good,  I  shall,  I  am  told,  discover 
with  intuitive  certainty  that,  purely  as  rational,  it  con- 
strains a  rational  being  to  take  as  his  ethical  end,  not 
his  own  happiness  simply,  but  his  greatest  possible  hap- 
piness, and  not  merely  his  own  greatest  happiness,  but 
the  greatest  happiness  of  mankind — assuming,  of  course, 
that  happiness  is  a  good.  It  tells  him  that  it  is  irrational 
to  prefer  himself  to  the  greater  claims  of  others;  for  in 
the  eye  of  reason  he  is  but  a  single  unit,  and  there  is  no 
rational  ground  for  giving  to  one  unit  any  arbitrary 
preference  over  another,  or  for  taking  it  for  more  than 
its  proportional  part  of  the  whole.  And  if  pure  reason 
is  thus  competent  to  justify  the  general  or  social  happi- 
ness as  an  ethical  end,  which  in  its  very  nature  has  a 
rational  claim  upon  our  action,  we  have  the  clue  for  un- 
raveling the  whole  ethical  situation;  and  since  reason  is 


76  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

universal  and  the  same  for  all  men,  a  true  objectivity  is 
secured  for  moral  law. 

I  think  that  on  consideration  it  will  appear  that  Pro- 
fessor Sidgwick's  claim  here  overlooks  the  most  essential 
point.  The  proposition  that  more  good  is  always  better 
than  less  good  might  mean  only  this,  that  more  good  con- 
tains a  larger  quantity  of  good  than  less  good.  This  is  an 
identical  proposition,  and  reason  is  perfectly  competent 
to  take  care  of  it.  But  evidently  it  is  not  such  a  purely 
quantitative  meaning  that  it  is  supposed  to  have.  What 
the  proposition  needs  to  mean,  in  order  to  escape  the 
charge  of  being  a  verbal  and  innocuous  one,  is  that  to 
choose  a  greater  good  is  morally  better  than  to  choose  a 
lesser  one — that  we  ought,  that  is,  in  every  case  to  do  it. 
I  have  already  raised  the  question  whether  this  is  always 
true.  Other  things  being  considered  equal,  there  is  no 
moral  obligation  to  choose  a  greater  pleasure  for  myself 
rather  than  a  lesser  one;  if  I  am  willing  to  put  up  with 
a  smaller  amount  of  good  in  the  shape  of  pleasure,  no 
one  has  the  slightest  grievance.  I  can  indeed  say  that  I 
shall  be  a  fool  not  to  follow  my  own  greatest  happiness, 
and  that  no  man  ought  to  be  a  fool ;  but  here  the  "ought" 
may  plausibly  be  held  to  depend  upon  the  feeling  of  repug- 
nance which  the  thought  of  folly  arouses  in  me,  and  so  to 
have  left  behind  the  purely  rational  proposition. 

And  wherever  the  rational  obligation  to  choose  the 
greater  good  holds,  it  will  always  be  found  to  imply  in 
this  way,  in  addition  to  intellectual  intuition,  some  ele- 
ment of  restrictive  feeling.  Consider,  as  perhaps  a  clearer 
case,  the  attitude  of  the  man  who  contemplates  making  an 
unjust  exception  in  his  own  favor,  and  allowing  himself  to 
count  for  more  than  one  in  the  distribution  of  human  hap- 
piness. I  do  not  at  all  deny  that  the  rational  perception 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      77 

of  inequality  may  give  rise  to  a  motive  which  puts  con- 
straint upon  desire.  But  if  it  does,  it  is  because  it  touches 
off  some  more  ultimate  feeling  of  distaste ;  it  does  not 
get  it  purely  in  its  own  right.  A  cold-bloodedly  selfish 
man  could  in  his  moments  of  greatest  selfishness  still  per- 
ceive that  one  is  less  than  two;  but,  he  would  say,  why 
should  this  affect  my  action — which  is  something  lying 
quite  beyond  the  realm  of  mathematics — any  more  than 
the  perception  that  a  dozen  is  twelve  times  one  should 
lead  me  to  eat  a  dozen  dinners  in  spite  of  the  absence 
of  appetite?  Something  of  a  very  different  sort  however 
enters  into  the  situation  in  case  I  find  myself,  as  is  clearly 
possible,  instinctively  taking  the  other  man's  point  of 
view,  and  feeling  a  sense  of  revolt  and  uneasiness  at  the 
subordination  of  his  just  claims  to  my  own  private  de- 
mands; here  I  begin  to  come  in  contact  with  a  real 
restraining  force.  Or — and  this  is  what  appears  in  par- 
ticular to  be  back  of  Professor  Sidgwick's  claim  for 
reason — I  may  translate  the  judgment  of  the  less  into  a 
judgment  of  the  "trivial."  Then  the  intellectual  percep- 
tion that  the  greater  is  more  than  the  less  would,  indeed, 
when  applied  to  the  superiority  of  the  general  good  over 
what  is  just  mine,  get  an  ethical  significance.  But  the 
trivial  differs  from  the  less  precisely  in  the  emotional 
feeling  of  dislike  which  accompanies  it.  Of  such  a  feeling 
one  ingredient  is  in  a  special  sense  connected  with  the 
intellect — the  distaste  which  a  reasonable  being  has  for 
falling  below  the  standard  of  impartiality  and  intellectual 
fairness,  as  he  would  do  were  he  to  exalt  the  claims  of  one 
unit  over  the — in  the  eyes  of  reason — equal  claims  of 
others.  The  intellectual  dislike  of  "inconsistency,"  or  of 
allowing  personal  and  irrelevant  considerations  to  influ- 
ence a  purely  objective  survey  of  fact,  may  enter  as  an 


78  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

important  element  into  my  state  of  mind.  But  an  "in- 
tellectual" dislike  is  still  a  dislike,  and  not  a  bare  rational 
perception  of  relationships. 

We  are,  accordingly,  brought  back  again  to  the  pre- 
vious thesis,  as  a  working  hypothesis  for  a  theory  of 
obligation.  For  the  peculiarity  of  the  sense  of  oughtness 
I  am  able  to  discover  no  underlying  reason  except  this 
new  fact  that  there  is  aroused  in  me  a  feeling  of  repug- 
nance or  dislike.  It  is  not  enough  that,  for  the  moral 
experience,  we  should  have  a  recognition  of  the  "good," 
or  even  a  comparison  of  goods.  If  I  simply  compare 
what  I  like  with  what  I  like  more,  and  do  not  feel  a  positive 
dislike  to  the  thought  of  one  alternative,  there  is  no  sense 
of  ethical  quality,  but  only  of  the  quantitatively  greater, 
or  of  the  aesthetically  more  admirable.  On  the  other  hand 
this  does  not  mean  of  course  that  we  can  never  think  of 
anything  with  displeasure  without  feeling  a  sense  of  duty. 
It  is  only  under  specific  conditions  that  the  moral  expe- 
rience appears.  But  in  case  such  an  emotional  repug- 
nance is  directed  against  something  for  which  we  also  have 
an  active  craving,  it  then  will  tend  to  act  quite  in  the  way 
called  for  in  an  empirical  description  of  the  ought — as  a 
restraint  upon  desire,  in  that  it  makes  us,  in  spite  even 
of  strong  desire,  uncomfortable  when  we  disregard  it. 
The  thought  of  some  gaucherie  or  blunder  will  likewise 
call  forth  a  feeling  of  repugnance  or  dislike ;  but  it  is  not 
a  moral  situation  for  this  reason,  that  no  independent 
tendency  exists  to  perform  the  act  which  is  reprobated, 
and  so  no  sense  of  "ought  not"  can  arise.  We  thus  are 
able  to  speak  of  acts,  or  pleasures,  as  higher  and  lower, 
in  the  sense  that  carries  obligation  with  it.  because  alpng- 
sTde","'  and  working  in  opposition  to  that  which  pulls  us 


positively  in  their  direction,  jherp  flg  pre86B*-  Another  ele- 
"Jnent — &   sense   of   conscious   repulsion — influencing   our 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      79 

judgment  about  this  very  same  object  which,  in  its  imme- 
diate form  as  impulse,  attracts  us.  And  in  so  far  as 
tnese  feelings  are  really  grounded  in  human  nature,  tneT 
'meet  the  rational  requirements  whichjnere  custom^qMflie 
more  or ksfLAlfl^|]Qlop''cai  inhibitions  whicJLjday,  such  a 
partTJTthe  Freudian  psychology,  faTTtoineet,  in  that  they 
are  not"o!eT3T!r7)ye7n^^  analysis  which  brings 

them  into  the  light  of  day. 

The  Psychological  Sources  of  the  Ought. — It  only  re- 
mains to  point  more  explicitly  to  the  existence  of  such 
feelings  in  particular  which  actually  influence  our  judg- 
ments. And  I  shall  mention  here  briefly  the  ones  that 
seem  to  me  most  important,  though  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  the  list  is  exhaustive. 

There  is,  to  begin  with,  the  negative  aspect  of  the 
aesthetic  emotion— the  feeling  for  the  ugly.  That  the 
aesthetic  ugliness  of  an  act  or  quality  is  frequently  an 
element  in  its  moral  character  would  be  very  generally 
recognized.  Why  do  I  feel  that  sensuality  is  ethically  to 
be  condemned  and  that  piggishness  is  not  a  human  virtue? 
To  some  appreciable  extent,  at  least,  out  of  an  aesthetic 
disgust.  With  a  certain  refinement  of  taste,  which  I  find 
is  so  generally  capable  of  being  developed  under  proper 
conditions  that  it  justifies  its  place  in  my  conception  of 
human  nature,  piggishness  arouses  an  immediate  feeling  of 
dislike.  And  this  aesthetic  dislike  of  the  ugly  may,  as 
appears  conspicuously  in  the  Greek  ideal  of  life,  play  a 
very  considerable  part  in  leading  us  to  condemn  as  un- 
seemly many  forms  of  conduct  to  which  the  natural  appe- 
tites might  prompt  us. 

A  second  form  of  emotional  revolt  that  also  clearly  acts 
as  a  restraining  force  is  the  instinctive  reaction j^gajjost 
selfish  aggression  and  cruelty- — what  may  perhaps  be 
called  moral  indignation.  This  is  an  obviously  important 


80  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

ingredient  in  the  concept  of  injustice,  as  will  appear 
more  fully  in  a  later  connection.  Along  with  it,  and 
pointing  in  the  same  general  direction,  is  the  feeling  of 
sympathy  or  pity,  whose  possible  effectiveness  in  the  way 
of  putting  restraint  upon  our  native  inclinations  figures 
prominently  in,  for  example,  the  theory  and  practice  of 
Buddhism.  The  two  together  may  be  called  the  social 
element  in  the  "ought."  It  is  very  probable  that  the 
primary  incidence  of  the  sense  of  indignation,  at  least,  is 
upon  the  acts  of  our  fellows  rather  than  on  our  own 
desires.  But  it  remains  empirically  true  that,  at  some 
stage  of  development  at  any  rate,  the  feelings  all  become 
capable  of  being  directed  against  the  inner  pressure  of 
positive  inclination  or  impulse  as  well. 

That  disgust  and  indignation  and  pity  are  actual  emo- 
tional forces  in  the  normal  human  life  I  am  taking  for 
granted  here  without  much  elaboration,  since  the  facts  are 
sufficiently  obvious.  One  further  emotional  feeling  calls 
however  for  a  more  extended  scrutiny,  not  only  because  it 
is  obscurer  in  itself,  but  because  it  will  be  found,  I  believe, 
to  be  of  very  particular  importance  for  understanding 
the  nature  of  the  sense  of  obligation  in  its  more  developed 
form.  Indeed  it  even  seems  to  lend  to  the  preceding  feel- 
ings also  their  final  touch  of  authority.  Let  us  suppose 
that  a  man  is  experiencing  a  sense  of  aesthetic  disgust 
at  some  act  or  impulse  of  his  own.  So  long  as  the  senti- 
ment persists  he  will  feel  himself  constrained  dumbly  not 
to  violate  it ;  but  it  does  not  of  itself  supply  any  answer 
to  the  question  why  this  should  be  so.  Nevertheless  it 
does  not  follow  that  no  answer  of  any  sort  is  possible. 
And  if  I  undertake  to  press  the  question,  Why  should  I 
admit  the  claims  of  decency  and  seemliness  over  strong 
desire?  I  shall  almost  certainly  find  the  answer  taking 
some  such  form  as  this:  You  cannot  perform  an  act  of 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      81 

this  sort,  and  still  retain  your  sense  of  self-respect.     The 
thing  is  low,  unworthy  of  you,  mean  and  small. 

This  last  emotional  attitude,  which,  it  will  be  noticed, 
attaches  closely  to  the  exercise  of  the  valuing  and  com- 
paring intellect,  and  which  might  be  called  a  dislike  of, 
or  contempt  for,  that  which  is  petty  and  trivial,  and 
unworthy  of  human  powers,  is  one  whose  nature  and 
source  it  is  somewhat  less  easy  to  locate.  Judgments 
about  relative  importance  it  is  easy  to  understand ;  such 
are  the  quantitative  judgments  of  which  there  has  already 
been  occasion  to  speak.  What  now  we  are  considering 
is  the  possibility  that  this  may  lend  itself  to  a  judgment 
of  qualitative  difference  as  well,  by  the  addition,  to  the 
mere  perception  of  more  or  less,  of  an  active  feeling  of 
dislike  toward  the  idea  of  the  quantitatively  inferior.  The 
more  thoroughly  the  ethical  experience  is  canvassed,  the 
more  pervasive  will  this  sort  of  judgment  be  found  to  be. 
It  is  indeed  an  unsafe  feeling  to  follow  blindly,  since  it  so 
readily  allies  itself  with  our  natural  inclination  to  be 
snobs.  But  the  feeling  of  contempt  for  the  narrow  and 
the  petty  is  in  itself  clearly  not  incapable  of  justification. 
Thus  a  part  of  the  objection  to  sensualism  is,  undoubt- 
edly, a  recognition  of  the  insignificant  character  of  its 
objects  of  ambition,  in  view  of  all  the  many  interesting 
things  that  might  be  done  in  the  world;  the  result  does 
not  look  big  enough  to  justify  intellectually  our  practical 
claim  for  its  supreme  importance.  So  of  self-absorption 
in  any  form.  When  we  consider  it  impartially,  there  arises 
a  feeling  of  its  trivialness  as  an  end;  what  is  the  sense 
of  my  being  wrought  up  about  my  private  concerns  in  a 
universe  which  contains  so  many  more  momentous  inter- 
ests? It  may  be  added  that  this  same  form  of  judgment 
helps  to  correct  its  own  excesses,  and  so  explains  why  at 
times  the  condemnation  of  the  trivial  is  itself  condemned. 


82  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

An  aristocratic  condescension,  of  birth,  or  brains,  or  cul- 
ture, toward  that  which  is  supposed  to  be  common  and 
lacking  in  distinction,  is  usually  best  met  by  turning  light 
upon  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  limitations  of  the 
typical  aristocratic  temper. 

A  satisfactory  analysis  of  this  final  sort  of  judgment 
is,  as  I  say,  not  altogether  simple.  It  is  not  mere  size 
or  bigness  that  affects  us,  although  we  have  this  natural 
admiration  for  impressiveness  and  weight  and  power,  and 
even  find  its  presence  insensibly  operating  to  moderate 
the  repugnance  which  on  other  grounds  we  might  be  led 
to  feel.  Sinning  on  a  scale  large  enough  goes  a  certain 
way  in  the  popular  mind  toward  lessening  our  condemna- 
tion, and  the  Devil  has  always,  and  naturally,  had  ad- 
mirers. But  the  admiration  of  bigness  and  forcefulness 
has  no  necessary  relation  to  a  dislike  for  that  which 
lacks  the  quality;  the  tiny  helplessness  of  a  child,  for 
example,  has  a  positive  charm  of  its  own.  And  with  this 
our  best  moral  insight  seems  to  agree.  It  does  not  allow 
us  to  despise  relative  weakness  as  such,  the  lesser  man 
simply  because  he  is  not  built  upon  an  ampler  scale;  in 
fact  the  disposition  to  show  contempt  for  weakness  allies 
itself  with  a  serious  moral  defect. 

I  think  that  a  possible  clue  to  the  answer  may  be 
reached,  if  we  turn  to  the  impression  which  a  display  of 
energy  and  power  makes  upon  us  when  we  meet  it  in  the 
natural  world.  Why  do  we  feel  attracted  toward  such  an 
exhibition  of  force  in  nature — a  thunder  storm  or  a  rag- 
ing torrent?  The  experience  is  complex  of  course,  and 
there  are  various  reasons;  but  the  deepest  reason  is 
hardly  just  a  quantitative  one.  Ultimately  it  is  not  be- 
cause it  is  so  big,  but  because  it  is  so  real.  For  a  creature 
whose  fate  at  any  moment  may  depend  on  the  ability  to 
separate  realities  from  illusions,  it  would  indeed  be 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"     83 

strange  if  the  intellectual  recognition  of  being  in  con- 
tact with  reality  did  not  have  the  power  to  generate  an 
appropriate  feeling.  There  is  an  immense  comfort  and 
satisfaction  in  the  sense  that  one  is  brought  up  against, 
and  rests  upon,  the  solid  foundation  of  the  real,  which 
enters  as  a  more  and  more  vital  element  into  the  inner 
life  as  it  grows  in  intensity  and  power  of  discrimination. 
The  quantitatively  big  has  its  part  in  developing  this 
sense,  because  here  the  real  world  is  able  to  force  our 
recognition  beyond  dispute.  But  the  time  comes  when 
experience  of  disillusion  and  unreality  causes  us  to  give 
welcome  to  anything,  great  or  small,  if  only  it  is  genuine, 
substantial,  a  thing  to  count  on  and  not  find  slipping 
from  our  grasp,  or  failing  us  in  time  of  need.  And  now 
while  an  admiration  for  mere  bigness  does  not  carry  with 
it  any  necessary  condemnation  of  that  which  lacks  the 
quality,  we  cannot  approve  reality,  if  reality  is  what  gives 
firm  footing  to  our  lives,  without  thereby  being  constrained 
to  entertain  a  contrary  feeling  of  dislike  toward  the 
absence  of  reality,  as  offering  no  stimulus  to  our  active 
powers,  or,  in  the  form  of  illusion,  as  promising  a  stimulus 
and  then  disappointing  us. 

I  am  accordingly  disposed  to  analyze  the  judgment  of 
triviality  into  the  sense  of  intellectual  repugnance  which 
a  recognition  of  unreality  tends  to  evoke.  And  the  terms 
that  naturally  express  it — the  trivial,  the  paltry,  the 
petty — help  to  bear  this  out.  The  trivial  is  not  an  abso- 
lute term,  but  a  relative.  A  thing  is  not  trivial  just 
because  it  is  small.  It  is  trivial  because  it  is  inadequate 
to  something,  because  it  is  too  small  to  justify  itself  in  a 
given  situation.  But  unreality  also  is  relative.  We  have 
no  notion  of  reality,  in  the  concrete,  out  of  all  relation 
to  the  human;  the  real,  for  our  understanding,  is  what 
we  can  count  on,  what  genuinely  lends  itself  to  human 


84  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

life  as  serving  in  some  fashion  its  needs.  And  as  anything 
we  can  bring  before  our  minds  at  all  can  conceivably  find 
some  need  which  it  will  serve,  nothing  whatever  is  abso- 
lutely unreal.  It  is  unreal  in  so  far  as  it  fails  us — in  so 
far,  that  is,  as  it  is  trivial  and  practically  worthless.  It 
follows  that  no  particular  quantitative  amount  of  reality 
is  necessary  if  it  is  to  avoid  being  condemned  as  trivial, 
and  so  the  greater  or  smaller  human  capacity  is  not  by 
itself  an  occasion  for  the  judgment.  Nor  is  it  the  in- 
adequacy of  a  man's  powers  to  a  specific  situation  which 
calls  it  forth — this  may  demand  pity  rather  than  con- 
demnation; it  is  rather  the  inadequacy  of  the  end  itself. 

This  last  statement  calls  attention  to  what  will  appear 
perhaps  to  be  the  most  distinctive  aspect  of  the  matter. 
It  is  not  the  act  as  such  that  we  condemn  as  trivial ;  it  is, 
in  the  end,  the  presence  of  a  judgment  inadequate  to  the 
realities  of  the  situation.  As  itself  an  intellectual  or  value 
judgment,  "triviality"  is  directed  primarily  against  the 
irrational  estimate  of  relative  values  which  the  trivial  act 
implies.  Thus  it  is  not  so  much  the  seeking  of  pleasure 
which  makes  me  despise  a  man ;  it  is  the  revelation  in  his 
attitude  of  how  absurdly  he  is  overrating  such  an  end  in 
comparison  with  worthier  ones.  The  unreality  of  the 
standard  which,  as  supposedly  a  rational  being,  he  himself 
sets  up,  is  what  condemns  him;  the  animal  who  seeks  for 
pleasure,  but  who  does  not  claim  to  be  rational,  I  do  not 
despise.  So  pretentiousness,  conceit,  arrogance,  are  like- 
wise condemned  as  trivial,  because  they  lay  bare  a  valua- 
tion which  has  no  relationship  to  reality  and  fact. 

I  may  notice  briefly  in  conclusion  that  we  have  no  need 
to  go  beyond  the  previous  analysis  to  account  in  essence 
also  for  that  secondary  aspect  of  conscience  which  most 
theories  fail  to  connect  very  closely  with  the  sense  of 
duty — the  experience  of  remorse  when  conscience  is  vio- 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"      85 

lated.  For  if  the  agent  of  constraint  is  a  feeling  of  dis- 
approval, this  will  still  continue  to  be  present  after  desire 
has  disappeared,  and  will  pronounce  its  reflective  judg- 
ment on  our  conduct. 

Summary. — To  sum  up,  accordingly,  the  ethically  "bet- 
ter" is  equivalent  to  that  which  we  "ought  to  do" ;  but 
what  we  ought  to  do  is  not  an  ultimate  notion,  but  is 
capable  of  analysis.  The  moral  "ought"  is,  in  the  first 
place,  a  restraining  force,  in  terms  of  feeling,  exerted 
upon  impulse  or  desire.  As  such  it  is  a  bare  "ought  not," 
which  carries  no  necessary  reference  in  consciousness  to 
an  alternative  "better."  But  since  the  failure  to  act  in 
one  manner  is  commonly  set  over  against  the  choice  of  an 
alternative  action,  we  are  in  a  secondary  way  led  to  speak 
of  that  which  we  "ought  to  do,"  in  distinction  from  that 
which  we  "ought  not."  And  thereby  the  alternative 
action  takes  on  a  comparative  quality  of  its  own,  tinged 
by  the  specifically  moral  feeling  that  comes  from  this 
sense  of  emotional  inhibition;  and  we  have  for  the  first 
time  the  qualitative  better  in  the  genuinely  ethical  sense. 

In  strictness,  then,  we  are  not  under  obligation  to  do 
a  thing  because  it  is  better,  in  this  ultimate  moral  mean- 
ing. It  is  ethically  better  because  we  ought  to  do  it — 
because,  that  is,  the  alternative  act  which  implies  the 
neglect  to  do  it  calls  forth  the  "ought  not"  feeling.  And 
if  such  a  statement  seems  not  quite  true  to  the  moral 
facts,  I  think  this  will  be  found  to  come  from  overlooking 
the  ambiguity  in  the  term  "better."  For  it  will  very  com- 
monly be  true  that  the  morally  better  has  also  the  positive 
attribute  of  what  I  have  called  "aesthetic"  quality.  Indeed 
it  may  at  times  be  just  because  it  is  first  recognized  as 
better  in  this  latter  sense  that  its  alternative  excites  our 
disapproval,  and  so  comes  within  the  field  of  duty.  I 
say  that  I  ought  to  make  some  effort  to  "cultivate  my 


86  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

mind,"  though  my  natural  laziness  would  find  a  course 
of  idle  amusement  more  congenial.  Very  likely  the  issue 
would  never  become  a  live  one  did  I  not  first  recognize  a 
cultivated  mind  as  "higher"  than  an  uncultivated  one,  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  a  good  which  forces  in  some  degree  my 
natural  admiration.  But  mere  admiration  by  itself,  once 
more,  is  no  sufficient  guarantee  that  I  shall  hold  it 
ethically  better,  or  something  that  I  "ought  to  do,"  since 
I  admire  many  things  that  do  not  set  me  a  duty.  The 
latter  judgment  implies  not  only  that  I  admire  brains, 
but  that  this  leads  me  to  dislike  the  laziness  and  stupidity 
to  which  I  am  prone ;  and  so  it  rests  in  the  end  on  the  nega- 
tive feeling  of  the  "ought  not." 

One  final  point  it  may  be  worth  while  adding  here. 
Moral  good  differs,  it  has  been  seen,  from  natural  good, 
in  that  we  not  only  find  it  existing,  but  judge  that  it 
"ought  to  be";  and  since  the  feeling  of  oughtness  arises 
only  under  conditions  of  conflict  with  inclination,  this 
limits  the  moral  good  to  the  sphere  of  human  conduct. 
It  does  not  appear  justifiable  to  assert  that  any  "object," 
or  purely  objective  value  out  of  relation  to  conduct, 
"ought"  to  be,  except  perhaps  in  the  sense  in  which  this 
may  be  taken  as  a  purely  formal  analysis  of  the  content 
of  the  "ought"  judgment,  with  no  metaphysical  implica- 
tions. We  may  call  an  object  worthy  of  existence,  mean- 
ing that  it  is  not  simply  good  in  this  or  that  aspect  of  it, 
but  is  relatively  immune  from  the  risk  of  exciting  those 
feelings  of  repugnance  and  dislike  that  give  rise  to  the 
ethical  ought.  But  this  still  falls  short  of  the  judgment 
that  it  has  any  right  to  claim  existence.  No  form  of 
good,  however  pure  and  high,  can  by  itself  assert  such  a 
claim.  Beauty,  for  example,  is  a  thing  which  clearly  we 
should  like  to  find  real ;  and  the  world,  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  say,  will  be  a  better  world  for  its  reality.  But  why 


ETHICAL  QUALITY  AND  THE  "OUGHT"     87 

ought  it  to  be  a  better  world  rather  than  a  worse,  when 
divorced  from  all  relation  to  the  choice  of  responsible 
beings  ?  If  I — or  a  God — were  accountable  for  the  world, 
then  only  do  I  find  myself  able  to  say  intelligibly  that  it 
ought  to  be  a  world  that  embodies  a  higher  good  rather 
than  a  lower ;  because  I  should  mean  that  the  maker  of  the 
world,  supposing  him  with  power  to  do  as  he  willed,  would 
be  acting  in  a  way  we  are  bound  to  condemn  were  he  to 
choose  the  less  instead  of  the  greater  perfection.  But  this 
presupposes  that  we  already  know  the  meaning  of  the 
"better,"  and  that  the  "ought"  is  something  in  addition 
to  that  meaning.  What  ought  to  be  is,  accordingly,  not 
beauty,  but  the  creation  of  beauty;  not  perfect  justice, 
but  the  continuous  endeavor  to  be  perfectly  just.  The 
"object"  is  only  a  shorthand  expression  for  the  goal  of 
the  ought,  and  is  not  its  immediate  content. 

Now  if  there  be  anything  at  all  deserving  to  be  called  a 
"universal"  or  an  absolute  good — something  that  is  good 
always,  under  whatever  circumstances — presumably  it 
will  be  found  in  connection  with  this  sphere  of  moral 
action,  since  there  is  no  natural  good  whose  attainment  at 
times  may  not  conflict  with  duty.  A  concrete  case  of 
conduct,  to  be  sure,  though  it  may  be  possible  to  speak 
of  it  as  absolutely  good  or  right,  is  hardly  to  be  called  an 
absolute  good ;  since  each  deed  is  unique,  it  can  be  absolute 
only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  one  deed  that  meets  fully 
the  given  situation,  and  not  as  meaning  that  it  is  always 
or  universally  good.  Nor  do  the  consequences  of  an  act 
call  forth  more  than  a  judgment  of  utilitarian  or  pru- 
dential goodness.  There  is  left  only  one  thing  that  might 
seem  to  have  some  title  to  be  called  a  universal  good — 
action  regarded  as  the  expression  of  an  inner  disposition 
or  state  of  mind.  This  is  a  "good"  because,  as  a  source 
of  conduct,  the  inner  attitude  is  a  necessary  condition  of 


88  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

human  happiness  or  satisfaction.  And  it  is  also  a  moral 
good  in  so  far  as  it  recognizes  as  necessary  to  happiness 
the  acceptance  of  the  moral  restraints,  and  so  comes  itself 
under  the  judgment  of  the  ought.  Thus  not  every  form 
of  human  disposition  which  constitutes  a  natural  good  is 
moral.  Natural  fearlessness,  for  example,  is  admired,  and 
judged  to  be  good.  But  it  fails  to  become  a  "virtue" 
until  it  takes  the  form  of  "courage";  and  courage  differs 
from  fearlessness  in  that  it  is  no  mere  spontaneous  gift  of 
nature,  but  is  imbued  with  a  recognition  that  we  "ought" 
to  stand  out  against  temptations  to  be  cowardly.  And, 
finally,  in  the  case  of  character,  or  the  specific  forms  which 
in  the  virtues  character  takes,  there  would  seem  ground 
for  saying  absolutely  that  it  ought  to  be.  Beauty  is  a 
very  pervasive  good ;  but  occasions  arise  when  it  ought  to 
take  second  place.  It  seems  proper  to  say  however  that 
we  ought  always  to  be  just,  since  justice  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  avoiding  the  feeling  of  disapprobation. 


CHAPTER  IV 
j 

THE  OBJECTIVITY  OF  THE  MORAL  JUDGMENT 

Objectivity. — Before  leaving  the  analysis  of  the  ethical 
judgment,  there  is  one  general  character  that  attaches  to 
it  which  calls  perhaps  for  a  somewhat  fuller  explanation. 
It  is  a  fact  that  the  judgment  undoubtedly  in  some  sense, 
as  Kant  insisted,  claims  objectivity  and  universality.  If 
however,  as  I  have  been  maintaining,  the  ought  and  good- 
ness are  both  dependent  on  the  presence  of  feeling  or  emo- 
tion, the  objection  is  likely  to  be  made  that  we  have  failed 
to  justify  this  objective  character.  It  will  be  desirable 
therefore  to  turn  back  and  reconsider  the  matter  a  little 
further  from  this  particular  point  of  view.  And  I  shall 
take  up  the  inquiry  under  two  heads:  First,  what  is  it 
more  exactly  that  we  mean  when  we  say  that  a  given  good 
is  really  good,  and  that  I  ought  in  consequence  to  adopt  it 
whether  or  not  I  find  myself  so  inclined?  And,  secondly, 
on  what  grounds  can  we  extend  this  obligation  to  others 
also,  and  maintain  that  there  are  common  moral  demands 
upon  all  men  alike? 

We  may  approach  the  problem  by  asking,  to  begin  with, 
what  precisely  the  case  against  feeling  appears  to  be,  and 
why  it  should  be  held  to  vitiate  the  "objectivity"  of  the 
moral  judgment.  And  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
objection  is  based  to  some  extent  upon  a  misunderstanding 
of  the  claim  involved.  "If  ought,"  Mr.  Rashdall  for  exam- 
ple urges,  "means  simply,  I  have  a  certain  feeling  of  dislike, 
then  when  another  man  has  a  different  feeling,  or  I  have  a 
different  feeling  at  another  time,  there  is  no  rational 

89 


90  THE  THEORY  OP  ETHICS 

ground  on  which  either  is  to  be  preferred."  Indeed  there 
is  no  sense  in  saying  that  we  "ought"  to  have  a  feeling 
which  does  not  exist,  if  it  is  the  bare  existence  of  a  feeling 
which  constitutes  the  ought.  Actually  however  the  whole 
validity  of  ethics  implies  the  truth  of,  not,  I  desire,  but,  I 
ought  to  desire ;  not,  I  feel,  but,  I  ought  to  feel. 

In  considering  this,  I  may  first  agree  once  more  that 
it  is  perfectly  true  that  the  moral  judgment  does  not  say 
that  a  feeling  exists ;  nor  does  it  reduce  itself  to  the  mere 
occurrence  of  a  feeling.  But  I  have  not  intended  to  imply 
either  of  these  things.  The  immediate  sense  of  oughtness 
is  indeed  a  particular  fact  of  feeling.  But  "objectivity," 
as  capable  of  rational  justification,  is  not,  on  any  defensi- 
ble theory,  guaranteed  by  the  immediate  sense  of  duty, 
which  may  point  us  on  occasion  very  far  astray.  It  does 
not  lie  in  the  recognition  that  a  feeling  is,  but,  for  critical 
reflection  at  least,  in  the  relation  of  an  object  to  a  feeling 
which  it  tends  to  evoke.  That  a  desire  is  objectively  good 
would  mean  then,  on  the  present  showing,  that  the  world, 
including  the  facts  of  human  nature  in  particular,  is  so 
constituted  that  a  certain  object  tends  persistently  to 
call  forth  in  me,  when  I  contemplate  it  in  a  cool  moment, 
a  feeling  of  approval,  whereas  the  contrary  sort  of  thing 
calls  up  a  feeling  of  disapproval,  this  feeling  lending  a 
new  shade  of  significance  to  the  objective  situation,  and 
conditioning  a  practical  disposition  to  maintain  the  one 
object  in  existence  and  abolish  the  other. 

Now  wherein  lies  the  ethical  danger  of  such  an  account 
of  the  matter  ?  Is  it  in  the  fact  that  an  important  aspect 
of  the  world  is  supposed  to  attach  to  the  capacity  in 
things  for  having  an  effect  on  human  feelings?  But  this 
seems  a  mere  prejudice.  Of  course  if  we  start  out  by 
minimizing  the  worth  or  significance  of  human  life  in  the 
universe,  or  by  minimizing  the  significance,  within  human 


OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENT      91 

life  itself,  of  emotional  as  opposed  to  intellectual  proc- 
esses, we  are  bound  to  hold  in  contempt  man,  or  the  feel- 
ings in  man.  I  shall  not  stop  to  argue  this  however,  since 
it  rests  itself  on  an  assumption  rather  than  on  argument. 
And  setting  it  aside,  I  see  only  one  clear  meaning  left  to 
the  claim  that  the  ethical  judgment  is  vitiated  by  being 
tied  up  to  feeling — that  feelings  very  easily  change,  and 
that  morality  in  consequence  is  infected  with  the  same 
impermanence  and  insecurity. 

In  such  a  criticism  there  is  an  element  of  truth,  but  also 
one  of  pure  irrelevance.  What  is  true  is  this,  that  there 
is  nothing  in  feeling  which  gives  infallibility  to  the  ethical 
judgment.  My  feelings  are  liable  to  alter,  and  with  them 
therefore  my  opinions  as  to  what  is  good  and  bad.  So  too 
another  man  may  have  a  different  feeling  from  mine,  and 
there  is  no  authoritative  judge  to  decide  between  us.  But 
this  is  something  which  attaches  to  the  moral  experience 
itself,  and  is  not  incident  to  any  particular  theory  about 
it.  If  we  try  to  reduce  the  moral  judgment  to  intellect 
we  have  just  the  same  difficulty.  Here  also  the  plain  fact 
is  that  moral  ideas  change,  and  that  they  differ  with 
different  persons;  and  no  authority  exists  competent  on 
a  priori  grounds  to  adjudicate  conflicting  claims.  All 
that  we  can  fairly  demand  is,  first,  that  each  man  should 
have  in  experience  the  basis  for  a  reasonable  measure 
of  confidence  that  his  own  private  judgments  are  sound, 
so  that  motives  for  action  will  not  be  destroyed;  and, 
secondly,  that  there  should  be  in  the  larger  processes  of 
history,  and  the  experience  of  the  race,  the  means  for 
gradually  testing  out  competing  ideals,  and  approving 
them  by  their  permanent  success. 

But  both  these  demands  are  quite  compatible  with  a  rea- 
sonable theory  of  feeling  as  constitutive  in  judgments  of 
value.  If  indeed  one  insists  that  by  feeling  is  meant  bare 


92  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

feeling,  apart  from  any  regard  for  the  place  it  occupies 
in  an  intelligible  world,  naturally  from  this  no  rational 
principles  can  be  derived.     But  in  whatever  is  said  of 
feeling,  I  am  presupposing  as  a  background  what  we  know 
about  feeling  as  a  function  of  the  human  organism,  with 
all  its  settled  characteristics.    And  in  its  relation  to  such 
an  organism  there  is   all   the  chance  that   seems   to  be 
required  for  giving  it  stability  and  objective  significance. 
We  are  not  left  with  mere  arbitrary  feelings.     If  feeling 
is  attached  to  permanent  capacities  of  the  human  consti- 
tution, these  are  sufficient  to  give  steadiness  and  assurance 
to  our  judgments,  while  also  they  represent  an  objective 
goal  to  the  discovery  of  which  the  growing  process  of 
experience  is  directed.     The  judgment  that  a  thing  is 
good  presupposes  that  it  will  really  satisfy  desire,  which 
rests  not  on  my  approval  merely,  but  on  the  nature  of 
things ;  so  that  I  can  ask  intelligibly  whether  it  is  after 
all  really  good — will  actually  have,  that  is,  the  effect  which 
I  anticipate  when  I  give  it  my  approval.    It  is  not  a  ques- 
tion what  feelings  we  shall   choose  to  prefer.     It  is   a 
question  what  things  our  feelings  will  let  us  prefer;  the 
feelings  are  not  left  to  our  private  whim,  but  to  nature. 
What  accordingly  is  meant  when  we  talk  about  a  thing 
as  really  good,  and  set  it  over  against  transient  and  mis- 
taken desire,  is  not  that  objective  goodness  is  something 
different  from  the  object  of  approval  to  which  we  started 
out  by  reducing  it,  but,  simply,  that  on  continued  reflec- 
tion, and  further  experience,  we  shall  find  it  retaining  our 
approval.    The  desirable,  as  distinct  from  the  desired,  is 
that  which  still  stands  up  securely  when  we  are  most 
"reasonably"  inclined.     It  is  the  thing  which  not  only  is 
desired,  but  which  we  see  there  is  no  sound  reason  we 
should  not  desire.     Such  a  judgment  always  indeed  con- 
tains a  necessary  element  of  faith.     It  is  no  arbitrary 


OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENT       93 

faith,  however,  but  is  based  on  my  objective  knowledge  of 
the  world,  and,  in  particular,  of  the  determinate  constitu- 
tion of  human  nature,  which  stands  in  the  background 
as  the  basis  of  all  possible  satisfaction,  and  so  acts  as  a 
steadier  and  corrector  of  opinion. 

The  knowledge  that  ethical  good  is  bound  up  with  feel- 
ing does  not  undermine  its  objective  character  then,  so 
long  as  our  feeling  still  persists,  and  is  dependent  on  con- 
ditions out  from  under  our  immediate  control.  But  some- 
thing more  than  this  may  now  be  added.  To  our  natural 
mind,  justified  approval  is  felt  to  reveal  a  character  of 
reality  itself,  not  limited  to  the  mere  correctness  of  our 
anticipation  of  psychological  consequences.  It  implies  a 
confidence  that  the  way  things  appeal  to  human  nature  is 
somehow  fundamental  and  central  in  the  ultimate  struc- 
ture of  the  universe.  This  is  a  demand  which  does  not 
supply  its  own  answer,  and  tell  us  just  how  such  a  universe 
will  need  to  be  conceived;  the  problem  has  to  be  turned 
over  to  metaphysics.  But  there  is  not  the  least  reason 
for  an  a  priori  judgment  that  it  cannot  be  solved  in  a  way 
to  validate,  in  essence,  our  natural  assumption.  The 
recognition  of  ethical  objectivity  in  this  deeper  sense  is 
encouraged  in  us,  and  perhaps  in  the  first  instance  made 
possible,  by  the  backing  it  gets  from  social  agreement. 
But  what  we  come  to  mean  by  objective  is  something  more 
than  the  mere  fact  that  men  generally  think  this  way;  it 
refers  us  back  to  the  nature  of  the  world  from  which  man 
springs.  Without  some  measure  of  social  agreement  we 
should  hardly  feel  very  confident  of  being  on  the  track  of 
truth,  because  what  is  true  vindicates  itself  by  its  power 
to  produce  general  conviction.  But  at  bottom  the  moral 
is  better  than  the  immoral  not  because  men's  opinions 
coincide;  their  opinions  are  led  to  coincide  because  the 
fact  is  so.  It  is  true  once  more,  and  perhaps  in  special 


94  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

measure,  that  when  we  claim  objectivity  for  our  beliefs 
about  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  universe  at  large  we  are 
appealing  to  a  faith  which  goes  beyond  the  possibility  of 
reasoned  demonstration.  But  there  is  nothing  in  a  depen- 
dence on  feeling,  so  long  as  the  feeling  is  rooted  in  per- 
sistent facts  of  human  nature,  to  cast  doubt  upon  this 
faith,  or  to  make  it  fundamentally  different  from  our 
faith  that  the  world  is  truly  and  objectively  ruled  by 
causal  law. 

Accordingly  the  only  difference  left  in  principle  between 
a  theory  of  intellectualism  and  one  of  "emotionalism"  is 
this,  that  the  nature  of  the  underlying  constitution  of  the 
world  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  moral  life  to  uncover 
is  revealed  to  us,  according  to  the  one  account,  through 
intellectual  perceptions  of  relationships  among  the  objects 
of  experience,  whereas  according  to  the  other  it  is  revealed 
by  the  capacity  of  a  certain  kind  of  situation,  intelligibly 
grasped  and  contemplated,  to  arouse  in  us,  by  virtue  of 
our  given  constitution,  processes  which  determine  our 
emotional  and  practical  response.  Which  of  these  more 
accurately  represents  the  facts  connected  with  our  value 
judgments  must  be  left  for  analysis  to  decide;  but  both 
may  be  equally  consistent  with  objectivity. 

Universality. — It  is  obvious  that  in  this  final  sense, 
at  any  rate,  objectivity  suggests,  in  some  interpretation 
of  the  word,  universality  as  well — the  extension  of  the 
idea  of  genuine  good  from  my  nature  to  man's  nature, 
and  the  demand  that  it  shall  exercise  a  general  human 
compulsion.  Empirically,  however,  there  are  certain  addi- 
tional difficulties  here  which  need  a  separate  consideration. 
And  two  things  should  be  admitted  unreservedly  at  the 
start,  neither  of  which  perhaps  will  be  satisfactory  to  a 
certain  thoroughgoing  ideal  of  the  universality  of  the 
good.  In  the  first  place,  each  individual  has  for  himself 


OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENT       95 

to  be  the  judge  of  what  is  good,  since  this  attests  itself 
in  terms  of  personal  satisfaction.  There  is  no  authorita- 
tive standard  in  morality,  and  the  dispute  between  moral 
ideals  must  to  the  end  be  left  theoretically  undecided. 
Naturally  our  moral  preferences  are  not  to  be  regarded 
as  arbitrary  and  unreasoned.  A  man  may  have  abundant 
reason  for  regarding  his  own  as  thoroughly  rational, 
and  as  alone  capable  of  introducing  harmony  into  the 
ethical  life.  The  trouble  is  not  that  all  ideals  are  unrea- 
sonable, but  that  different  men  have  different  reasonable 
ideals — they  disagree,  that  is,  as  to  what  is  reasonable 
and  what  is  not.  This  is  a  plain  matter  of  fact ;  and  being 
so,  it  leaves  in  practice  the  final  decision  to  each  man's 
personal  judgment,  and  renders  morality  a  democratic, 
and  not  an  aristocratic  or  an  autocratic  concern. 

But  practically  such  a  residual  doubt  makes  very  little 
difference  indeed,  any  more  than  theoretical  troubles 
about  the  law  of  causation  bother  the  working  scientist. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  other  man  is  right  and  I  am 
wrong;  and  except  as  a  suggestion  of  tolerance,  I  do  not 
have  ordinarily  to  pay  much  heed  to  the  mere  abstract 
possibility.  And  especially  is  this  true  of  that  weighty 
body  of  ethical  belief  where  a  practical  consensus  of  opin- 
ion holds.  There  are  some  things  so  grounded  in  human 
experience,  in  general  acceptance,  in  their  consonance 
with  the  most  fundamental  principles  on  which  we  are 
accustomed  successfully  to  order  our  lives,  that  any 
attempt  to  raise  questions  about  them  is  bound  to  seem 
arbitrary  and  captious,  and  we  can  for  the  most  part 
afford  to  ignore  it,  just  as  we  no  longer  seriously  debate 
witchcraft,  or  perpetual  motion,  or  the  location  of  the 
Lost  Tribes.  Naturally  these  judgments  of  "good  sense" 
are  themselves  liable  to  be  mistaken,  and  to  brush  aside 
too  lightly  the  call  for  reconstructing  moral  ideas.  But 


96  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

this,  again,  only  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  no  plain 
and  undeviating  path  to  moral  truth  exists. 

In  so  far,  then,  as  we  find  reason  to  accept  the  actual 
existence  of  common  ideals,  we  are  no  more  handicapped 
by  the  recognition  that  ideals  are  personal,  than  by  the 
recognition  in  any  other  field  that  judgments  are  bound 
to  be  our  judgments.  We  simply  have  to  come  to  the 
best  conclusion  we  can  about  the  nature  of  a  certain  kind 
of  fact,  the  fact  being  open  to  observation  like  any  other. 
This  fact  is  the  constitution  of  human  nature.  Of  course 
there  is  no  one  human  nature  absolutely  the  same  every- 
where. But  unless  there  were  a  good  deal  in  common  to 
different  men,  it  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  a  common 
morality ;  and  that  there  is  a  good  deal  in  common  in  what 
men  want,  and  in  what  they  approve  and  condemn,  is  to 
be  accepted  merely  because  it  is  so. 

Meanwhile  it  is  not  in  connection  with  the  elements 
common  to  different  men,  but  with  the  differences,  the 
points  at  which  they  depart  from  the  common  tradition, 
that  the  more  serious  difficulty  for  ethical  theory  arises. 
Suppose,  as  certainly  is  conceivable,  that  some  men  find 
their  real  satisfaction  in  ends  which  the  more  general 
moral  judgment  disapproves,  and  so  that  notions  of  the 
good  remain  permanently  discordant;  would  not  this  be 
to  deny  universality,  and  leave  moral  standards  uncertain? 
In  a  sense  it  would.  Here  is  a  man  who,  we  will  assume, 
actually  finds  his  good  in  something  which  appeals  to  me 
as  harmful  and  abhorrent.  I  have  an  immediate  and 
strong  disposition  to  condemn  this  as  immoral ;  and  yet 
have  I  a  right  to  do  so?  If  really  he  is  acting  upon  his 
genuine  nature,  he  is  following  out  what  for  him  is  the 
good ;  and  why  should  he  be  overborne  by  others  who  are 
differently  constituted?  Granting  that  he  understands 
himself  correctly,  there  seems  no  way  of  evading  the  impli- 


OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENT       97 

cation;  and  I  simply  therefore  should  have  to  accept  the 
fact  that  what  commonly  is  called  morality  is  not  binding 
upon  him.  I  cannot  pronounce  moral  judgment  on  the 
man,  in  the  sense  of  meaning  that  he  ought  not  to  desire 
the  end  he  does  desire.  It  is  unintelligible  to  say  that 
anybody  ought  to  feel  what  there  is  no  capacity  in  him 
for  feeling.  Of  course  if  I  believe  that  the  capacity  is 
there,  then,  "You  ought  not  to  like  this,"  is  an  appeal  to 
the  man  to  search  his  own  heart,  and  see  whether  he  too 
will  not  on  reflection  come  to  see  the  matter  as  I  do,  under 
penalty,  otherwise,  of  mistaking  his  own  best  good.  "You 
ought,"  in  other  words,  means,  "You  will  regret  it  if  you 
don't."  And  wherever  a  man  finds  himself  fundamentally 
out  of  harmony  with  mankind,  the  chances  are  of  course 
vastly  in  favor  of  the  supposition  that  he  has  not  yet 
dug  down  to  his  inmost  nature.  But  on  the  supposition 
that  it  is  genuinely  so  that  a  given  man  has  unalterably 
the  instincts,  say,  of  the  tiger  or  the  pig,  I  should  cease 
to  say  that  he  ought  to  feel  differently;  just  as,  if  I  am 
sensible,  I  do  not  blame  the  real  pig  for  his  tastes,  but 
leave  him  to  his  own  conscience  and  his  Maker. 

But  such  qualifications  lose  most  of  their  importance 
in  view  of  two  facts.  One  is  the  fact  that  it  is  only  in 
exceptional  cases  that  the  difficulty  appeals  to  us  in  real 
life.  Minor  differences  of  nature  impose  to  an  extent 
different  duties  on  different  men;  but  we  all  recognize 
this  in  practice,  and  recognize  it  as  harmless.  It  is  entirely 
consistent  with  a  substantial  identity  of  moral  judgment. 
In  rare  cases,  indeed,  cases  of  the  moral  pervert,  we  may 
be  led  in  theory  to  admit  exceptions  to  the  universality  of 
the  moral  rule.  But  this,  again,  merely  admits  that  the 
absence  of  essential  qualities  in  a  being  in  the  shape  of 
man  puts  him  outside  the  class  of  men  for  particular 
purposes,  and  leads  us  to  qualify  our  judgment  in  the 


98  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

same  way  we  have  long  agreed  to  qualify  judgments  on 
the  insane.  If  a  man  is  without  the  rudiments  of  pity,  or 
of  a  sense  of  fairness,  or  of  self-respect,  he  is  morally 
insane,  and  we  cannot  say  that  "ought"  has  any  meaning 
for  him. 

On  the  other  hand  this  does  not  alter  of  necessity  the 
sort  of  conduct  we  are  called  upon  to  adopt  toward  such 
a  man.  And  it  does  not  even  prevent  us  logically  from 
calling  him  a  bad  man,  in  the  sense  in  which  this  implies, 
not  that  he  is  failing  in  his  "duty."  but  only  that  he  falls 
under  the  dislike  of  normal  men.  If  his  ends  do  really 
seem  to  me  hateful  I  have  a  perfect  right  to  judge  them 
bad ;  indeed  I  cannot  help  doing  so,  since  to  be  an  object 
of  disapproval  is  to  be  judged  bad.  The  fact  that  he 
cannot  change  his  nature  does  not  hinder  me  from  calling 
the  man  who  likes  this  particular  sort  of  thing  as  detest- 
able as  I  please,  or  from  taking  whatever  measures  the 
circumstances  justify  for  suppressing  him.  And  I  still 
can  say  that  a  man  "ought"  to  have  those  instincts  of 
decency  and  humanity  that  belong  to  manhood;  though 
all  I  intend  by  this  is,  that  a  specimen  of  a  class  must 
come  reasonably  near  to  the  standard  of  the  class  if  it 
is  not  to  excite  disapproval  as  a  poor  specimen. 


CHAPTER  V 

* 

RESPONSIBILITY   AND    FREEDOM 

Responsibility. — It  perhaps  would  be  possible  without 
serious  loss  to  stop  at  this  point  the  analysis  of  the  basic 
ethical  concepts,  since  the  gist  of  the  matter  is  now 
before  us.  Nevertheless  there  is  one  further  term  which 
has  played  too  large  a  part  in  the  history  of  ethics  to  be 
entirely  neglected.  This  is  the  idea  of  freedom,  or  free 
will.  The  motive  for  much  of  the  traditional  interest  in 
freedom  is  a  theological  rather  than  a  strictly  ethical 
one.  It  is  mixed  up  with  the  question  of  the  relationship 
of  God  to  man,  and  the  reconciliation  of  man's  responsi- 
bility with  God's  omnipotence.  However  it  is  also  true 
that  responsibility,  to  the  safeguarding  of  which  a  theory 
of  freedom  has  mainly  been  directed,  has  an  ethical  impor- 
tance as  well.  Evidently,  unless  in  some  sense  a  man  is 
responsible  for  his  actions,  the  significance  of  the  ethical 
life  is  bound  to  suffer  and  perhaps  disappear. 

But  the  course  of  ethical  discussion  has  made  it  evident 
that  responsibility  in  the  ethical  sense  is  possible  also 
under  a  theory  of  determinism  as  well  as  of  free  will.  If 
we  ask  what  is  meant  in  practice  by  responsibility,  we 
find  it  reducing  to  the  demand  that  men  should  possess  a 
character  such  that  we  can  deal  with  them  rationally,  and 
with  a  well-grounded  expectation  that  their  conduct  is 
going  to  be,  not  arbitrary  and  incalculable,  but  amenable 
to  common  and  reasonable  motives.  In  a  word,  it  means 
that  we  shall  be  able  effectively  to  hold  them  responsible. 

An  irresponsible  person  is  one  who,  like  an  idiot  or  a  luna- 

99 


100  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

tic,  will  not  recognize  plain  facts,  and  is  impervious  to 
sane  argument.  You  cannot  hold  him  responsible  simply 
because  the  attempt  will  not  work;  he  goes  ahead  as  his 
whim  or  his  fixed  idea  suggests,  without  reference  to  the 
motives  that  govern  normal  men.  And  it  has  often  been 
argued  that  only  on  a  deterministic  theory  can  a  man  be 
held  responsible,  since  if  there  are  no  necessary  causal 
laws  at  work  in  conduct,  if  a  given  reason  brought  to  bear 
upon  a  determinate  nature  still  leaves  it  equally  free  to 
move  in  either  direction,  all  ground  for  confidence  in  deal- 
ing with  men  disappears. 

So  far  then  as  the  vindicating  of  responsibility  is  con- 
cerned, one  might  feel  justified  in  avoiding  an  extended 
discussion  of  freedom  as  an  ethical  presupposition.  Quite 
recently  however  the  problem  has  taken  a  somewhat  novel 
turn;  and  since  this  has  a  bearing  on  the  more  general 
implications  of  the  point  of  view  I  have  been  adopting,  it 
seems  desirable  to  add  a  few  rather  tentative  considera- 
tions. 

The  Motives  for  Indeterminism. — The  argument  about 
"free  will" — by  which  I  shall  at  least  intend  to  mean 
something  different  from  the  "freedom"  of  the  self-deter- 
minists — is  complicated  at  the  start  by  a  difficulty  in 
defining  the  term  clearly  enough  to  locate  the  exact  point 
at  issue.  It  is  not  very  satisfactory  to  say,  for  example, 
that  free  will  is  action  apart  from  causes  or  motives, 
though  frequently  this  seems  to  be  implied.  Such  a  phrase 
might  equally  stand  for  the  purely  irrational;  and  no 
philosopher  would  really  wish  to  identify  the  ethical  with 
the  irrational.  Accordingly  defenders  of  free  will  have 
often  evaded  formal  definition,  and  have  referred  us  to 
experience  if  we  would  know  what  the  concept  actually 
means.  However,  they  largety  agree  that  it  is  describable 
as  not  one  thing  in  particular.  A  "free"  act  is  one  not 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND 

to  be  wholly  accounted  for  in  terms  of  the  facts  that 
precede  it  in  point  of  time;  so  that  if  a  man  were  fully 
aware  of  all  of  these,  he  still  would  not  be  in  a  position 
to  predict  it  absolutely. 

But  when  he  takes  such  a  stand,  the  indeterminist  finds 
himself  at  once  engaged  with  formidable  antagonists. 
Science  has  been  held  to  say  just  this,  that  every  event 
whatsoever  in  the  world  must  be  the  determinate  outcome 
of  past  events.  The  traditional  ideal  of  science  is  repre- 
sented by  the  concept  of  a  universal  thinker  who,  placed 
in  perfect  possession  of  all  the  facts  up  to  date,  can  look 
ahead  and  see  the  entire  future  unroll  with  unfailing  cer- 
tainty. And  if  the  claims  of  indeterminism  nevertheless 
still  persist  in  the  minds  of  supposedly  reasonable  men, 
some  explanation  seems  to  be  required.  Why  should  any 
one  still  hesitate  to  yield  unconditionally  to  the  "scien- 
tific" ideal?  What  motives  account  for  the  stubborn 
claim  that  he  is  free? 

As  I  try  to  analyze  my  own  state  of  mind  here — assum- 
ing that  it  is  not  exceptional — I  find  that  I  do  detect  a 
natural  prejudice  against  this  notion  that  anyone  could 
even  conceivably  be  in  a  position  to  predict  with  scientific 
certainty  my  future  conduct.  Apparently  it  renders  me 
only  a  cog  in  the  mechanism  of  the  world ;  and  I  want  to 
conceive  of  myself  as  a  creative  cause  as  well,  not  a  mere 
meeting  point  of  forces.  Moreover,  this  attitude  is  not 
the  expression  of  a  purely  personal  demand.  It  involves 
philosophical  presuppositions  of  a  more  general  sort.  The 
typical  philosophy  of  science,  with  all  its  talk  about 
evolution,  has  been  in  a  real  sense  anti-evolutionary. 
What  it  calls  evolution  is  only  the  shifting  of  unchanging 
elements  in  a  more  or  less  continuous  direction;  by  no 
chance  does  genuine  novelty  ever  come  into  existence.  To 
"explain"  a  thing  means,  indeed,  to  show  that  it  is  not 


"THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

new,  but  can  be  reduced  to  what  already  is  familiar.  Of 
late  however  there  has  been  growing  up  in  the  philosoph- 
ical world  an  antipathy  to  this  whole  way  of  looking  at 
the  universe,  and  a  refusal  to  acquiesce  in  the  notion  of 
playing  a  game  of  which  the  outcome  is  cut  and  dried. 
And  the  same  demand  has  almost  always  been  the  form 
our  practical  interest  in  life  assumes.  To  the  average 
man  a  genuine  belief  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun,  that  all  that  is  to  come  is  just  the  exposition  of  a 
finished  scheme,  that  he  himself  is  only  an  illustrative 
detail  of  general  laws  and  not  an  individual  creative  force, 
would  prove  inexpressibly  boring. 

And  if  it  is  said  that  nevertheless  the  facts  are  so,  and 
no  dissatisfaction  of  ours  can  change  them,  the  answer 
is  that  what  unquestionably  is  so  is  not  the  facts,  but  a 
certain  theory  of  the  facts,  which  may  possibly  be  a 
misapprehension.  The  facts  seem  to  be  quite  otherwise. 
Especially  when  we  pass  from  the  physical  realm  to  that 
of  conscious  experience,  there  appears  to  be  no  trouble 
in  verifying  the  claim  that  a  scientific  explanation  may 
fail  to  eliminate  novelty  from  the  world.  I  have  at  a  given 
moment  a  sensation  of  sweetness  or  of  pain — a  transient 
and  elusive  fact  of  which  nevertheless  I  can  be  as  sure  as 
it  is  possible  for  me  to  be  of  anything.  Science  may  under- 
take to  account  for  this  by  pointing  to  the  specific  con- 
ditions under  which  the  pain  feeling  arises ;  and  these 
conditions  may  be  reducible  to  a  set  of  terms  already 
familiar.  But  that  which  happens  is  not  so  reducible. 
The  actual  felt  painfulness  is  something  which,  until  it 
actually  had  been  experienced,  no  one  could  by  any  possi- 
bility have  looked  forward  to  even  had  his  knowledge  of 
physiology  been  ideally  complete.  Furthermore  the  sen- 
sation is,  from  the  standpoint  of  biology,  not  only  a  new 
of  fact ;  each  instance  of  the  sensation  is  an  addition 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  FREEDOM        103 

to  the  sum  of  existences.  It  is  not,  like  an  "atom,"  sup- 
posed to  be  there  all  the  time,  and  to  change  only  in  its 
associates  or  in  spatial  position.  It  was  not,  it  is,  and 
presently  it  will  pass  away  again.  And  that  there  are 
permanent  underlying  conditions  which  science  tries  to 
discover  as  a  way  of  explaining  new  facts  hardly  goes 
to  show  that  there  are  no  new  facts  to  explain. 

There  is  a  second  point,  standing  for  a  source  of  the 
desire  to  feel  oneself  free,  which  has  a  still  closer  connec- 
tion with  the  ethical  experience.  Science  is  inclined  to 
reduce  the  causes  that  explain  an  act  wholly  to  physical 
conditions ;  whereas  men  generally  will  hardly  be  satisfied 
unless  they  can  believe  that  intelligence  is  an  actual  deter- 
minant of  conduct.  If  our  inner  life  is  not  to  lose  its 
significance,  the  fact  must  be,  as  it  clearly  seems  to  be, 
that  the  conscious  presentation  to  ourselves  of  ends,  and 
the  reconstruction  which  these  get  "in  the  mind"  prior  to 
action,  may  enter  genuinely  into  the  explanation  of  the 
resultant  deed.  In  connection  with  this  conscious  delib- 
eration there  are  always  modifications  of  neural  process 
that  exemplify  physical  law.  But  to  stop  here  would  be 
to  change  entirely  what  people  ordinarily  mean  by  action 
directed  by  intelligence.  If  the  immediate  awareness  of 
the  situation — a  thing  that  can  be  distinguished  from  any 
conceivable  brain  process — is  made  simply  a  sign  or 
accompaniment  of  the  latter,  and  to  the  neural  fact  all 
the  effective  work  is  assigned,  this  is,  in  everyday  lan- 
guage, to  be  a  mechanism,  and  not  a  self-determining 
agent  at  all.  What  naturally  we  find  ourselves  believing 
is  that  the  intelligent  awareness  itself,  as  a  valuing  activ- 
ity, makes  by  its  presence  the  action  different  from  what 
otherwise  it  would  have  been.  It  is  unquestionable  that 
men  thus  feel  their  conscious  and  intelligent  thought 
partly  responsible  for  the  direction  taken  by  their  lives ; 


104  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  notion  that  the  work  is  really  all  done  for  them  behind 
the  scenes  they  instinctively  reject,  and  find  more  or  less 
repulsive. 

Indeterminism  and  Science. — So  long,  then,  as  we  take 
the  situation  at  its  face  value,  and  do  not  assume  the 
falsity  of  the  apparent  facts  under  the  influence  of  a  spec- 
ulative and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  unverifiable  scientific 
construction,  we  shall  find  ourselves  naturally  believing 
that  life  is,  at  its  best,  a  creative  achievement  which  actu- 
ally adds  in  unlooked-for  ways  to  the  sum  and  the  value 
of  existence;  and  that  our  instrument  for  this  is  to  be 
found  in  those  ideal  anticipations  of  the  future  in  which 
the  forward-looking  side  of  human  nature  takes  shape, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  rational  deliberation  from  which 
new  insight  and  new  action  emerge.  Meanwhile  is  there 
really  anything  in  this  that  contradicts  science  and  its 
presuppositions?  Does  science  lend  itself  necessarily  to 
a  "closed  system"  ideal,  or  is  it  capable  of  acquiescing  in 
a  world  in  which  real  novelties  appear?  Are  the  returns, 
in  theory,  all  in  at  the  start,  or  does  the  universe  really 
grow?  If  we  admit  the  appearance  of  a  new  fact  incap- 
able of  being  scientifically  deduced  from  a  former  state 
of  the  world,  are  we  giving  up  the  chance  of  explaining  it, 
and  so  introducing  an  element  of  irrationality  into  the 
universe  ? 

Of  course  if  the  recognition  of  novelty  does  really  mean 
giving  up  science  and  reason,  novelty,  it  is  to  be  presumed, 
will  have  to  go.  But  one  should  first  make  sure  there  is 
no  other  alternative.  And  instead  of  abandoning  the 
novel  because  it  is  irrational,  it  might  be  possible  to  retain 
it,  and  revise  our  notion  of  what  reason  demands.  If 
reason  and  science  are  to  be  identified  with  the  possibility 
of  finding  the  total  nature  of  the  new  in  the  old,  of  reduc- 
ing the  strange  without  remainder  to  the  familiar,  of  show- 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  FREEDOM         105 

ing  that  at  each  advancing  stage  of  the  world  there  is 
really  nothing  present  that  a  sufficiently  inclusive  knowl- 
edge would  not  have  found  in  the  preceding  stages,  then 
to  suppose  real  novelty  is  to  suppose  the  irrational  by 
definition.  But  it  is  not  evident  that  this  is  what  science 
means.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  might  seem  to  be  going 
back  to  a  conception  which  the  working  scientist  has 
largely  discarded.  What  "determinism"  suggests  as  some- 
how essential  to  the  situation  is  that  notion  of  a  necessary 
causal  bond,  a  rigid  constraining  of  the  new  moment  by 
the  preceding  one,  which  so  far  back  as  Hume  came  in 
for  a  destructive  criticism.  Actually  the  aim  of  science 
is,  of  course,  nothing  but  the  discovery  of  law.  All  that 
a  "rational"  world  presupposes  is  that  things  are  not 
chaotic  and  independable,  but  orderly;  given  determinate 
conditions,  and  a  specific  pattern  of  reality  discloses  itself 
in  the  outcome.  Our  faith  in  reason  fortifies  us  against 
the  thought,  which  would  make  of  things  an  intellectual 
nightmare,  that  under  identical  conditions  at  another 
time  a  different  pattern  might  be  revealed.  The  future 
is  predictable,  therefore,  in  the  sense  that  in  so  far  as  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  the  conditions  are  the  same, 
we  have  confidence  that  things  are  going  to  work  along 
familiar  lines. 

But  prediction  may  be  limited  in  two  ways.  In  the 
first  place,  since  situations  never  do  exactly  repeat  them- 
selves, we  have  always  in  practice  to  deal  with  probabili- 
ties. A  scientific  law  is  a  scheme  of  abstract  relationships 
which  we  hold  before  the  mind  to  help  us  to  simplify  a 
complex  situation,  and  so  increase  our  chance  of  guessing 
right,  rather  than  an  infallible  rule  for  anticipating  the 
future.  Empirically  the  scientist  never  can  be  sure  that 
things  are  coming  out  just  as  he  expects,  even  in  the  most 
artificially  limited  experiment,  since  he  can  never  control 


106  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

conditions  fully.  And  when  it  is  out  of  his  power  to 
arrange  the  circumstances  experimentally,  as  in  history 
and  human  action  generally,  his  prophecies,  as  every  one 
can  see,  are  crude  approximations,  and  often  no  better 
than  wild  guesses.  Here  the  source  of  the  limitation  is 
man's  necessary  ignorance. 

But  also  there  is  another  possible  limitation  to  the 
powers  of  prediction.  The  uniformity  of  action  under 
assigned  conditions  does  not  require  that  we  should  be 
able  to  anticipate  what  the  character  of  the  law-abiding 
action  is  to  be  prior  to  the  actual  appearance  of  the  con- 
ditions, and  our  acquaintance  with  the  results.  Perhaps 
we  can  deduce  it  from  the  laws  we  have  discovered  in  sim- 
pler situations ;  but  then  again,  perhaps  we  cannot.  This 
has  to  be  left  for  experience  to  say.  And  whatever  the 
answer,  the  intelligibility  of  the  world  still  remains.  When 
physical  elements  for  example  are  brought  into  certain 
determinate  relationships  a  new  chemical  reaction  will 
appear.  This  reaction  has  a  specific  character  and  order, 
which  can  be  counted  on  whenever  the  conditions  are 
repeated.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  there  was  any  way 
of  telling,  ahead  of  experience,  what  the  chemical  event 
was  going  to  turn  out  to  be,  even  had  we  possessed  the 
completest  possible  knowledge  of  the  way  matter  works 
in  non-chemical  situations.  Scientists  have  usually  liked 
to  believe  that  from  the  simple  laws  of  mechanics,  say,  all 
other  laws  can  conceivably  be  determined ;  they  are  simply 
expressions  of  mechanical  law  in  varying  degrees  of  com- 
plication. But  science  has  never  professed  actually  to 
have  done  this ;  nor  is  there  any  a  priori  reason  requiring 
us  to  suppose  that  the  ideal  is  a  valid  one.  It  might 
equally  so  far  as  we  can  see  be  true,  as  it  clearly  appears 
to  be  true,  that  at  a  certain  stage  of  complication  things 
suddenly  begin  to  act  in  new  ways,  incapable  of  derivation 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  FREEDOM         107 

by  any  feat  of  ingenuity  from  the  laws  that  represent 
their  previous  behavior  under  different  conditions.  And 
in  such  a  case,  with  no  disrespect  to  science,  we  should 
have  an  unpredictable  novelty  in  the  world.  Of  course 
we  can  say  that  the  new  chemical  reaction  must  already 
have  had  its  ground  of  possibility  in  reality  before  it 
revealed  itself.  Naturally  nothing  can  happen  unless  it 
is  possible  for  it  to  happen.  But  this  is  not  a  "scientific" 
statement.  Scientifically  the  only  meaning  to  the  claim 
that  the  present  is  a  necessary  outcome  of  the  past  is  the 
possibility  of  deriving  it  from  the  laws  of  reality  in  its 
earlier  expressions;  and  this  by  hypothesis  cannot  here 
be  done. 

It  would  theoretically  seem  possible,  then,  to  accept  in 
this  sense  the  indeterminism  of  the  ethical  act  without 
being  forced  to  regard  it  as  irrational.  It  is  rational, 
because  conduct  reveals  in  itself  an  orderly  and  intelligible 
character.  But  if,  as  is  at  least  conceivable,  human  life 
is  an  expression  of  a  genuinely  growing  universe,  if  reason- 
directed  action  is  a  way  in  which  reality  comes  to  a  head 
and  defines  itself  in  a  new  situation,  it  also  might  follow 
that  it  is  unpredictable  from  the  laws  of  physical  life, 
or  from  the  psychological  law  of  mere  natural  impulse. 
It  may  be  that  the  presence  of  an  intelligent  realization  of 
ends  is  just  the  condition  leading  to  a  novel  reaction, 
whose  own  law — for  of  course  it  has  a  law — is  to  be  found 
not  by  deduction  from  the  simpler  laws  that  precede,  but 
empirically  by  looking  to  see  what  the  new  consequences 
are.  It  might  turn  out  that  the  apparent  truth  is  the 
real  truth  also — the  apparent  truth  being  that  the  process 
of  rational  deliberation  represents  the  focussing  point  of 
growth  after  a  fashion  creative  of  new  law  and  new  fact, 
instead  of  being  the  outcome  of  old  law  and  fact.  Ulti- 
mately we  may  be  justified  in  believing  that  what  seems 


108  THE  THEORY  OP  ETHICS 

to  be  the  case  in  human  achievement  and  purposive  action 
is  really  constitutive  of  reality,  and  not  an  illusion  grace- 
fully concealing  the  wheels  and  pinions  of  the  machinery 
that  actually  does  the  work. 

We  are  not  in  this,  once  more,  substituting  chance  for 
intelligibility.  The  artist  who  creates  a  work  of  art  does 
not  feel  that  it  is  arbitrary.  It  is  indeed  inevitable,  the 
only  outcome  artistically  conceivable.  But  it  gets  its 
quality  of  inevitableness  not  from  what  precedes — marble 
and  language  have  no  inevitable  push  toward  a  statue  or 
a  poem — but  in  terms  of  the  idea  which  lay  ahead,  the 
artistic  goal.  It  is  necessary  as  the  one  satisfying  solu- 
tion of  a  problem  which  was  not  solved  until  the  artist 
created  the  solution,  although  the  preceding  conditions 
of  a  true  solution  render  the  outcome,  when  it  appears,  a 
rational  or  intelligible  fact.  My  act  could  thus  be  pre- 
dicted only  as  the  would-be  prophet  ceases  to  work  with 
logical  tools,  and  becomes  himself  a  creator,  putting  him- 
self imaginatively  in  my  place,  and  feeling  his  way  to  the 
same  new  fact.  And  to  the  thought  that  through  sympa- 
thetic intuition  another  man  may  thus  divine  my  decision, 
there  is  no  such  objection  as  that  which  I  feel  when  the 
process  is  conceived  in  terms  of  reasoning,  or  scientific 
prediction. 


CHAPTER  VI 

/ 

PRINCIPLES    IN    ETHICS 

The  Nature  of  Principles. — So  far,  apart  from  certain 
anticipations  in  the  preceding  chapter,  there  has  been 
occasion  chiefly  to  dwell  upon  the  facts  of  impulse  and  of 
feeling;  and  the  general  thesis  has  been  that  the  origin 
of  moral  judgments,  and  the  final  source  of  the  confidence 
a  man  may  feel  that  his  own  intuitions  of  value  are  justi- 
fied, are  to  be  located  not  in  reason,  but  in  other  and  pre- 
rational  factors  of  experience.  However  important  the 
part  reason  has  to  play,  it  is  not  its  work  to  set  ultimately 
the  ends  of  conduct  and  supply  their  raw  material;  and 
any  attempt  to  give  to  it  a  primary  role  will  result  in 
turning  ethical  principles  into  abstractions,  that  have  no 
virtue  in  them  for  the  actual  guidance  of  human  life. 

When  one  turns  however  to  the  education  or  develop- 
ment of  the  ethical  experience,  the  emphasis  will  need  to 
be  differently  placed.  Always  in  the  background  the  possi- 
bilities of  feeling  have  to  be  presupposed.  But  on  the 
whole  it  seems  probable  that  the  distinction  between  a 
coarse,  and  a  refined  and  sensitive  conscience,  lies  less  in 
native  differences  of  feeling  capacity  than  in  the  nicety 
of  our  insight  into  circumstances  and  conditions.  What 
we  call  refinement  of  feeling  is  in  large  measure  refinement 
of  perception ;  goodness  is  hardly  separable  from  a  certain 
moral  tact,  a  sympathetic  sensitiveness  to  niceties  of 
quality  and  conduct  overlooked  by  cruder  judgments. 
There  may  indeed  be  a  blundering  sort  of  goodness  apart 

from  a  sympathetic  moral  understanding;  but  we  show 

109 


110  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

our  feeling  for  its  very  inferior  moral  quality  by  our 
disposition  to  apologize  for  it. 

Briefly,  then,  moral  development  consists  primarily  in 
the  growth  of  a  capacity  to  perceive  in  a  situation  those 
elements  fitted  to  call  forth  the  appropriate  feeling.  Bad- 
ness is  more  often  than  not  stupidity.  To  take  a  common 
sort  of  instance,  much  dishonesty  and  cruelty  is  due  in 
the  first  place  to  the  ability  to  overlook  the  similarity  of 
the  case  in  hand  to  others  in  which  our  readiness  to  react 
more  sympathetically  is  successful  in  inhibiting  the  claims 
of  selfish  interest.  And  progress  lies  not  so  much  in 
strengthening  the  feeling  of  sympathy — this  may  already 
be  strong  enough  where  it  is  actually  called  forth,  as  is 
indicated  by  the  ease  with  which  even  a  hardened  audience 
can  be  worked  up  over  some  fictitious  case  presented 
vividly  on  the  stage — as  in  cultivating  the  capacity  to  see 
the  occasion  for  sympathy  in  a  wider  range  of  situations. 
Superiority  in  moral  insight  thus  depends  mainly  upon  a 
superior  moral  responsiveness  to  those  shades  of  a  situa- 
tion calculated  to  evoke  the  inhibitive  impulses  and  feel- 
ings. The  callous  man,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  man  who 
acts  to  a  morally  irrelevant  part  of  the  situation.  The 
unscrupulous  business  man  admires  himself  for  his  busi- 
ness acumen — a  thing  admirable  enough  in  itself — but  he 
fails  to  note  how  inadequate  an  account  it  gives  of  the 
total  fact. 

What  is  needed  then  in  order  to  conclude  the  present 
analysis  is  to  ask  in  what  general  form  reason  can  be 
applied  to  the  ethical  life  as  a  source  of  principles  to 
guide  us  in  the  search  for  our  best  good.  A  principle, 
we  may  note,  is  not  identical  with  a  command  or  rule, 
which  prescribes  categorically  a  course  of  action  without 
reference  to  the  reasons  which  justify  it.  And  it  is  some- 
thing more,  too,  than  a  mere  generalization,  fact,  or  truth. 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  111 

Every  principle  rests  indeed  on  a  foundation  of  fact ;  and 
it  is  necessary  to  emphasize  this  in  order  to  repudiate, 
again,  the  notion  that  in  reason  we  have  an  immediate 
intuition  of  absolute  ends.  However  universal  its  pro- 
nouncement about  the  supreme  moral  good  or  duty  may 
turn  out  to  be,  reason  is  never  fundamental  and  self- 
supporting.  Take  any  formula  that  has  been  proposed 
as  a  starting  point  for  ethics — the  proposition  that  we 
ought  to  be  reasonable,  or  that  we  ought  to  lead  a  unified 
life,  or  that  we  ought  to  work  for  the  general  good.  Of 
each  of  these,  as  purely  intellectual  propositions,  it  is 
legitimate  to  ask  the  question,  Why  ought  we?  We  reach 
no  resting  place  till  we  get  hold  of  something  that  is  not 
a  rational  intuition,  or  a  principle,  but  a  fact.  And  since 
the  fact  can  hardly  be  that  we  are  always  reasonable,  or 
always  unified,  or  that  we  always  act  for  the  general  good, 
the  ultimate  thing  we  are  left  with  is  the  fact  of  approval, 
as  an  empirical  expression  of  human  nature.  Unless  we 
found  ourselves — for  no  one  can  tell  winy  human  nature 
is  of  this  sort  rather  than  another,  or  indeed  why  it  is  at 
all — so  constituted  that  some  things  are  pronounced  good 
by  us  and  others  .not  so  good,  no  ideal,  or  principle,  or 
guiding  insight  would  be  possible.  And  this  fact  of 
approval,  again,  is  only  one  aspect  of  that  larger  fact  of 
the  human  constitution,  which  we  accept  on  the  strength 
of  the  established  convergence  of  common  sense  and  sci- 
ence. But  to  get  anything  we  can  call  a  principle,  we  have 
to  go  further.  A  principle  always  implies,  as  well,  a  con- 
nection with  human  practice ;  it  is  a  general  truth  which 
can  be  used  to  suggest  to  us  what  we  ought  to  do.  Accord- 
ingly if  we  are  to  be  sure  what  we  are  after  in  the  search 
for  ethical  principles,  it  is  well  to  translate  the  problem 
into  these  specific  terms :  Granting  the  existence  of  human 
nature  and  its  wants,  can  we  point  out  anything  as  in 


112  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

general  necessary  to  the  attainment  of  those  ends  which 
man  will  find  himself  permanently  approving? 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  possibility  of  such  necessary 
principles  is  supplied,  without  going  outside  the  limits  of 
an  empirical  view  of  the  world,  by  the  peculiar  nature  of 
the  fact  on  which  they  rest.  It  has  always  been  objected 
by  rationalists  in  philosophy  that  out  of  experience  noth- 
ing universal  can  arise;  at  most  all  we  can  get  from  an 
examination  of  fact  is  that  this  is  the  way  things  always 
have  been  in  every  instance  we  have  examined  in  the  past. 
And  in  the  ultimate  sense  such  a  claim  must  be  allowed. 
If  human  nature  were  to  change  fundamentally,  the  prin- 
ciples stating  what  now  is  necessary  to  its  satisfaction 
would  no  longer  hold  for  man.  We  have  to  start  with 
man's  constitution  as  we  find  it,  empirical  and  contingent. 
But  this  does  not  interfere  with  the  possibility  of  real 
principles  dealing  with  the  ethically  best,  because  "best" 
is  for  us  a  word  explicitly  relative  to  man  as  he  is.  And 
we  are  freed  from  the  uncertainty  of  mere  empiricism, 
simply  because  our  supposed  necessity  attaches  not  to  a 
generalization  of  events  and  instances,  but  to  the  neces- 
sary connection  between  a  want  or  group  of  wants  and 
the  known  conditions  of  their  satisfaction.  Granting 
both  the  existence  of  desire  and  the  world  in  which  it  tries 
to  get  expression — and  both  these  things  are  facts  that 
are  practically  assured — we  can  anticipate  further  experi- 
ence, and  say  generally,  not  only  that  men  have  commonly 
done  so  and  so,  but  that  so  and  so  must  be  done.  And 
the  necessity  remains  whether  or  not  men  have  done  this 
in  the  past.  This  is,  to  be  sure,  in  the  end  hypothetical 
necessity  only.  But  since  none  of  us  have  any  vital 
interest  in  inquiring  what  we  should  need  to  do  if  we  were 
apes  or  angels,  the  principles  practically,  though  not 
theoretically,  remain  absolute. 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  113 

The  Definition  of  "Life." — Before  asking  however  the 
general  source  and  nature  of  such  principles,  I  should 
like  to  go  back  from  a  slightly  different  standpoint  to  the 
basic  fact  which  principles  of  guidance  presuppose.  In 
scientific  language  this  is,  once  again,  the  biological  organ- 
ism with  its  mechanism  of  instinct.  These  however  are 
not  the  terms  in  which  life  presents  itself  to  the  natural 
man  when  he  is  actually  engaged  in  living  it.  The  ordi- 
nary person  does  not  think  much  about  his  instincts,  even 
if  he  can  be  supposed  to  know  that  he  has  them.  And  it 
will  be  useful,  in  order  to  avoid  ambiguities  as  we  proceed, 
to  inquire  what  is  the  translation  of  this  scientific  fact 
into  more  familiar  human  discourse.  What  does  life  actu- 
ally mean  to  the  man  who  is  not  concerned  to  describe 
it  scientifically,  but  who  tries  simply  to  express  what  in 
a  practical  way  he  is  doing  as  he  goes  about  his  daily 
business?  Such  a  statement,  it  should  be  noted  clearly, 
would  be  concerned  not  with  what  men  ought  to  do,  but 
with  what  they  do  do ;  it  is  not  yet  a  "principle."  And 
it  follows  that  it  would  give  as  such  no  answer  to  the 
ethical  problem.  It  would  not  tell  us  what  constitutes 
the  best  life;  within  its  confines  room  would  have  to  be 
found  for  a  variety  of  alternative  careers,  for  choosing 
between  which  principles  would  then  come  in. 

The  value  of  dealing  with  this  preliminary  definition 
first  lies  in  a  temptation  on  the  part  of  ethical  philoso- 
phers to  confuse  the  question  of  fact  with  that  of  ethical 
norm  or  standard,  and  to  suppose  that  they  are  furnish- 
ing a  guide  to  life  when  their  real  task  is  still  before  them. 
A  number  of  the  phrases  which  philosophers  have  used  to 
describe  the  end  of  human  conduct,  or  the  summum  bonum, 
are  in  reality  no  more  than  attempts  in  this  sense  at  a 
description  of  the  de  facto  end  identifiable  with  the  char- 
acter of  life  as  such;  they  are  blanket  terms  that  do  not 


114  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

by  themselves  give  us  any  practical  directions  about  the 
road  we  ought  to  take  for  the  attainment  of  the  best. 
Thus  even  if  it  were  the  case  that  what  every  human  being 
is  really  after  is  to  secure  his  own  pleasure,  we  should  still 
have  the  ethical  problem  on  our  hands ;  what  kinds  of 
pleasure  are  we  to  select  if  the  end  is  to  be  successfully 
attained?  The  same  thing  can  be  said  about  the  most 
prominent  modern  rival  of  the  pleasure  theory.  In  every 
act  that  satisfies  an  impulse — and  I  am  not  likely  to 
indulge  in  actions  that  do  not — I  am  in  so  far  "realizing" 
myself;  and  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  give  me  a  guide 
among  the  various  forms  of  self-realization  as  among  the 
various  forms  of  pleasure. 

Of  the  formulas  that  may  be  supposed  to  offer  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  character  of  life,  that  of  pleasure  is  historically 
the  most  widespread ;  but  in  view  of  what  already  has  been 
said  about  hedonism  it  is  unnecessary  to  consider  its 
claims  any  further.  All  men,  at  one  time  or  another,  set 
pleasure  among  their  aims  of  conduct ;  some  men,  it  may 
be,  make  it  the  one  rule  of  life.  But  that  the  normal  mind 
reckons  life  only  as  a  means  to  the  gratification  of  its 
private  feelings  is  simply  not  the  case.  In  instructed 
circles  a  different  type  of  formula  is  now  therefore  chiefly 
current,  pointing  back  in  one  form  or  other  to  that  scien- 
tific fact  which  traditional  hedonism  failed  to  take  suffi- 
ciently into  account — the  biological  life  with  its  predis- 
posed mechanism. 

The  first  way  of  putting  the  matter  which  this  suggests 
is  that  we  stick  to  the  biological  fact  in  its  lowest  terms, 
and  interpret  life  in  accordance  with  the  scientific  notion 
of  "self-preservation."  And  such  a  formula  has  indeed 
enjoyed  a  considerable  vogue,  owing  to  the  wide  popular 
influence  of  science,  and  the  apparent  simplicity  of  the 
formula  itself.  It  is  too  simple  however,  and  too  bare  of 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  115 

content,  to  stand  any  chance  of  justifying  itself  to  impar- 
tial inspection.  To  hold,  with  Hobbes,  that  men  actually 
regard  the  preservation  of  themselves  in  existence  as  the 
one  self-evident  goal  never  to  be  lost  sight  of,  is  to  be  blind 
to  the  greater  part  of  human  experience.  It  gives  no 
heed  to  the  deep-lying  recklessness  of  human  nature,  its 
fondness  for  taking  a  sporting  chance;  and  it  is  quite 
inconsistent  with  intentional  self-sacrifice.  Nor  is  science 
unaware  of  this;  and  if  biological  preservation  is  its 
watchword,  at  least  it  is  not  self-preservation,  but  the 
preservation  of  the  race.  But  this  only  brings  into  relief 
the  fact  that  life  is  more  than  biology.  It  may  be  so  that, 
keeping  to  the  purely  animal  plane,  "nature"  is  only  inter- 
ested in  keeping  the  species  alive,  though  the  statement 
seems  more  poetic  than  scientific.  It  may  even  be  that  for 
themselves  men  ought  to  make  this  their  sole  aim.  But 
that  men  do  not  make  it  their  comprehensive  definition  of 
living  is  open  to  no  doubt  at  all. 

A  more  ethically  significant  form  in  which  the  same 
general  point  of  view  has  frequently  issued  has  already 
been  referred  to.  This  is  the  formula  of  self-realization. 
It  may  be  admitted  that  this  phrase  gives  an  account,  and 
a  fairly  true  account,  of  the  psychological  situation  we 
are  taking  as  a  starting  point,  just  as  preservation  per- 
haps does  of  the  biological  situation.  Life  is  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  expression  or  realization  of  the  self,  as  a  center 
of  potencies  and  impulses  to  action.  The  word  does  not 
to  be  sure  call  explicit  attention  to  the  other  side  of  the 
matter — the  pleasurableness  of  the  activity — which  is 
essential  to  the  notion  of  its  goodness.  But  this  aspect 
may  perhaps  be  taken  as  assumed.  And  in  any  case  the 
emphasis  is  one  degree  more  ultimate  than  the  emphasis 
present  in  the  pleasure  formula.  The  same  objection  can 
however  be  brought  against  self-realization  that  was  seen 


116  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

to  apply  to  pleasure ;  self-realization  is  not,  any  more  than 
pleasure,  the  thing  at  which  most  people  consciously  aim. 
Some  of  them  indeed  do.  There  are  men  for  whom  their 
own  self-development  constitutes  the  conscious  end  and 
motive.  But  this  is  enough  to  eliminate  the  term  for  our 
present  purpose;  in  so  far  as  self-realization  represents 
one  particular  type  or  ideal  of  living  among  others,  it  is 
not  a  blanket  term  to  apply  to  life  generally.  And  it  is 
open  to  another  stricture,  too,  which  its  upholders  bring 
against  the  hedonist ;  to  take  an  interest  solely  in  my  own 
growth,  my  own  development,  is  a  subtler  form  of  selfish- 
ness, and  is  calculated  to  arouse  in  the  impartial  mind  a 
sentiment  of  condemnation. 

Somewhat  closer  to  the  biological  formula  of  self- 
preservation,  but  more  easily  capable  of  being  enlarged 
to  take  in  the  spiritual  aspects  of  experience,  is  another 
phrase  which  has  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  recent 
writings.  If  we  translate  into  less  literal  terms  that 
assertion  of  oneself,  in  the  form  of  superiority  over  one's 
surroundings,  which  self-preservation  seems  to  imply,  we 
might  be  led  to  think  of  experience  as  a  striving  after 
power — the  consciousness  of  dominating  the  conditions  of 
our  life.  Such  a  mode  of  expression,  congenial  alike  to  a 
popularized  theory  of  evolution  and  to  the  natural  human 
fondness  for  self-glorification,  has  been  taken  up  and  given 
vogue  by  a  number  of  philosophic  and  semi-philosophic 
writers.  That  such  a  will  to  power  may,  in  an  aggressive 
personality,  be  consciously  chosen  as  the  highest  good, 
history  sufficiently  shows;  the  military  conqueror,  the 
Industrial  magnate,  the  political  demagogue,  all  may  exem- 
plify it.  But  to  extend  the  title  to  cover  dissentient  ideals 
also,  though  for  literary  purposes  it  may  prove  effective, 
is  open  to  certain  obvious  objections.  Turned  inward, 
the  ideal  would  mean  that  what  men  are  after  is  a  merely 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  117 

subjective  result  again — the  enjoyment  of  the  exercise  of 
power;  and  this  is  only  a  narrow  form  of  the  pleasure 
philosophy.  Directed  outward  in  order  to  escape  this 
subjective  taint,  it  gains  objectivity,  but  at  the  expense 
of  concreteness  and  definiteness.  Men  do  not  in  any  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word  simply  want  power.  They  want 
a  variety  of  things  in  particular,  of  which  power  consti- 
tutes qualitatively  only  one  of  many  characteristics.  And 
while  it  is  doubtless  true  that  all  of  them  involve  energiz- 
ing in  some  degree,  it  does  not  follow  that  this  necessary 
condition  can  adequately  describe  the  concrete  outcome 
men  are  after. 

Perhaps  in  view  of  the  difficulty  in  describing  life,  it 
might  after  all  be  left  as  its  own  interpreter.  And  indeed 
we  know  quite  well  what  living  means  if  we  do  not  try  to 
put  it  into  words.  But  there  remains  one  simple  and 
unambitious  formula  which  seems  to  me  fairly  successful 
in  conveying  this  meaning,  and  which  I  shall  find  it  con- 
venient to  use,  and  to  presuppose  in  the  subsequent  dis- 
cussion. Life,  namely,  means  doing  things  that  we  find 
interesting  and  important.  A  common  defect  in  most  of 
the  preceding  definitions  is  that  they  suppose  the  eye 
turned  inward  to  the  self;  whereas  it  is  definitely  char- 
acteristic of  a  normal  and  healthy  notion  of  life  that  it 
should  be  disinterested  and  outward-looking.  The  self 
is  indeed  taken  for  granted.  Its  needs  and  their  satis- 
faction are  involved.  But  it  is  essential  to  a  natural  view 
that  interest  and  attention  should  be  directed  to  things 
rather  than  to  feelings,  to  a  "career"  rather  than  to 
myself.  The  formula  accordingly  that  life  means  nor- 
mally an  absorption  in  interesting  and  satisfying  tasks  is 
intended  to  call  attention  to  three  things  in  particular. 
First,  life  consists  in  activity,  in  doing  something.  Sec- 
ondly, as  a  necessary  implication  of  this,  what  the  activ- 


118  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

ity  shall  be  is  determined  by  the  concrete  impulsive  nature 
of  the  individual  man;  and  its  guarantee  and  reward  is 
the  satisfaction  that  accompanies  the  expression  of 
impulse.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  life  is  self-realization, 
though  it  is  not  thought  of  as  such;  the  "losing  oneself 
in  one's  work"  is  the  very  condition  of  successful  self- 
realization.  And,  finally,  impulse  carries  as  a  part  of  its 
meaning  the  consequence  that  our  conscious  attention  has 
normally  to  be  directed  not  to  the  self,  nor  to  the  fact  or 
feeling  of  satisfaction,  but  to  the  objective  conditions 
which  render  the  act  possible,  and  to  the  outcome  of  the 
act  as  a  creative  accomplishment. 

I  shall  stop  for  a  moment  on  this  last  point.  Not  only 
does  it  represent  empirically  a  fact  in  the  ethical  experi- 
ence, but  we  can  see  roughly  why  it  must  be  so.  Once 
grant  that  life  is  made  up  of  active  impulses  endeavoring 
to  express  themselves  in  a  determinate  environment,  and 
consciousness  has  to  be  outward  looking.  The  self- 
absorbed  man  will  be  the  unsuccessful  man.  It  is  objec- 
tive intelligence  first  of  all  that  is  called  for ;  we  need  to 
give  our  best  attention  alike  to  the  conditions  to  be  mas- 
tered— or  they  will  master  us — and  to  the  ultimate  issue, 
or  we  shall  lose  our  path.  And  for  contemplation  also, 
as  well  as  for  the  process  of  active  effort,  there  are 
empirical  reasons  why  the  objective  emphasis  should  still 
rule.  Constituted  as  we  are,  we  can  get  lasting  satisfac- 
tion only  as  the  results  of  our  work  are  sources  of  admi- 
ration and  contemplative  approval ;  and  for  this  we  need 
to  look  beyond  our  own  feelings,  or  our  own  admirable 
characters  even.  It  is  true  that  it  is  my  satisfaction  that 
lends  to  objects  their  flavor  of  desirability,  and  my  effort 
and  achievement  that  constitute  work  an  end  for  me.  It 
is  true,  also,  that  the  normal  man  has  now  and  again  to 
envisage  the  personal  side  of  his  activity,  dwell  in  his 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  119 

mind  upon  the  work  as  his,  and  look  forward  to  the 
pleasant  things  it  will  bring  him,  in  order  to  keep  motiva- 
tion sufficiently  vigorous  and  tense.  But  when  the  need 
for  this  becomes  more  than  incidental,  it  argues  some- 
thing wrong  with  the  machinery  of  impulse. 

Indeed  it  is  a  commonplace  that  the  man  who  is  always 
anticipating  the  pleasant  results  to  come,  instead  of  being 
absorbed  in  the  interestingness  of  the  task,  is  very  apt 
to  find  himself  disappointed.  The  stronger  the  impulse  on 
which  satisfaction  depends,  the  less  we  have  to  coax  this 
along  by  thoughts  about  the  relation  of  the  work  to  us. 
This  is  in  part  the  explanation  of  the  "hedonistic  para- 
dox." If  pleasure  depends  on  wants  seeking  an  outlet,  then 
the  more  vigorous  the  wants  the  greater  the  attendant 
satisfaction.  But  the  man  who  wants  something  very 
much  does  not  have  to  look  about  him  with  the  mere  desire 
for  pleasure  in  his  mind;  the  direction  of  his  quest  is 
already  determined.  He  wants  to  go  fishing,  or  to  read 
a  book,  or  to  paint  a  picture;  and  the  strength  of  the 
want  is  his  guarantee  that  he  will  find  the  occupation 
satisfying.  If  on  the  contrary  he  has  to  sit  down  and 
ask  himself,  How  can  I  spend  the  afternoon  most  pleas- 
antly? this  means  that  there  is  nothing  in  particular  that 
he  wants  very  much  to  do.  He  is  already  rather  bored ; 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  in  such  a  case  he  will  get  much 
satisfaction,  no  matter  what  he  chooses. 

The  Classification  of  Principles. — However,  supposing 
that  we  are  willing  to  agree  that  a  search  for  congenial 
tasks  is  an  accurate  and  fairly  adequate  transcription 
of  the  end  we  set  before  us  in  living,  our  main  work  has 
just  begun.  What,  we  have  still  to  ask,  constitutes  a 
congenial  task?  What  kind  of  work  in  particular  carries 
with  it  our  settled  sense  of  approval,  so  that  we  pronounce 
it  really  and  permanently,  and  not  just  "apparently" 


120  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

good?  Are  there  any  general  truths  or  principles  here 
to  be  discovered  on  scrutiny  which  will  guide  us  in  our 
actual  quest,  or  are  we  left  wholly  to  chance  and  the 
rule  of  thumb? 

If  an  ethical  principle  is  a  statement  about  what  it  is 
necessary  to  do  in  order  to  be  able  to  lead  a  satisfying 
life,  we  shall  discover  such  principles,  not  in  the  realm  of 
"self-evident  truths,"  but  by  looking  to  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence and  trying  to  find  out  what  these  actually  have  to 
say  about  the  possibilities  of  successful  living.  And  the 
most  natural  way  to  classify  principles  would  therefore 
be  in  terms  of  the  kind  of  fact  to  which  we  are  appealing. 
There  are  three  general  sorts  of  relevant  facts.  First, 
there  are  the  purely  formal  conditions  which  success 
involves — the  abstract  methods,  that  is,  which  a  human 
being  has  to  follow  if  he  is  to  get  a  chance  at  concrete 
satisfaction.  Secondly,  there  are  the  external  conditions 
he  is  bound  to  take  into  account,  since  life  involves  not 
only  desire  and  interest,  but  the  surroundings  under  which 
interests  have  to  get  their  fulfillment.  And,  thirdly,  there 
are  the  inner  conditions,  in  terms  of  the  concrete  poten- 
tialities of  man's  nature,  which  set  the  lines  along  which 
satisfaction  is  possible. 

The  first  or  formal  principles  are  of  two  general  sorts, 
both  obvious  enough  to  need  no  extended  discussion.  It 
is  evident  to  begin  with  that,  considering  the  sort  of  being 
man  is,  a  successful  life  must  be  a  rational  life.  It  must 
not,  that  is,  be  merely  impulsive  and  haphazard,  but  must 
submit  impulse  to  rational  reflection,  and  act  only  after 
an  impartial  scrutiny  alike  of  the  outer  facts,  and  of  the 
relative  value  of  aims  and  ideals  such  as  comes  from  delib- 
erate self  knowledge.  It  is  well  to  note  once  more  that 
the  maxim,  Be  rational,  does  not  of  itself  tell  us  in  the 
least  what  is  rational.  As  a  principle  it  is  purely  formal, 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  121 

and  no  one  but  the  abstract  thinker,  concerned  less  with 
life  itself  than  with  its  scientific  technique,  would  be  likely 
to  suppose  that  it  covers  our  ethical  needs.  But  as  a 
formal  precondition  to  any  such  discovery  of  the  best 
life  it  is  quite  indispensable. 

As  the  first  formal  principle,  or  set  of  principles, 
attaches  to  the  intellect  as  a  tool  of  the  good  life,  so  the 
second  attaches  to  the  will.  If  no  man  can  reasonably 
expect  success  unless  he  puts  his  mind  to  the  business,  so 
no  man  can  look  to  getting  what  he  wants  apart  from 
certain  qualities  of  will.  The  world  is  not  a  place  where 
feebleness,  vacillation,  laziness,  are  tolerated ;  this  is  some- 
thing we  can  lay  down  a  priori  and  universally.  A  pre- 
condition of  satisfaction,  and  even,  in  almost  every  case, 
of  avoiding  disaster,  is  a  certain  capacity  for  effort,  and 
a  steady  loyalty  to  the  course  of  conduct  which  reason 
and  self-interest  have  laid  down. 

Bringing  us  nearer  to  the  concrete  facts  of  living  is 
the  second  group  of  principles,  which  come  from  the 
nature  of  the  world  that  reason  is  compelled  to  recognize. 
They  most  of  them  fall  again  into  two  main  groups.  On 
the  one  hand  are  the  demands  of  biological  well-being.  It 
is  so  nearly  always  the  case  that  it  may  practically  be 
made  a  rule,  that  a  satisfied  life  requires  a  foundation  of 
bodily  health  and  vigor.  Save  for  very  exceptional  rea- 
sons, therefore,  a  plan  of  life  which  ignores  the  primary 
demands  of  the  body,  leads  to  ill-health  or  a  constant 
overdrain  of  energy,  encourages  low  spirits  and  depres- 
sion, is  a  plan  which  we  can  say  beforehand  is  not  going 
to  work  out  well  in  practice.  A  man  who,  so  far  as  it 
lies  humanly  within  his  power,  does  not  as  a  regular  thing 
wake  up  in  the  morning  refreshed  and  feeling  fit  to  tackle 
the  day's  job,  cannot  flatter  himself  that  as  a  human 
being  he  is  a  success. 


122  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

The  second  most  general  sort  of  external  condition 
which  enlightened  self-interest  has  to  take  into  account 
is  the  social  fact — the  nature  and  disposition  of  our  fel- 
lows. So  long  as  happiness  depends  so  largely  as  it  does 
upon  the  way  in  which  other  men  behave  toward  us,  one 
who  ignores  this  in  his  plans,  and  sets  out  as  if  he  had 
only  his  own  interests  to  consult,  is  throwing  away  his 
chances  foolishly.  Human  nature  shows  certain  perma- 
nent and  objective  traits  which  we  are  compelled  to  keep 
in  view  unless  we  want  trouble;  quite  apart  from  any 
question  of  altruism  or  ideal  justice,  our  welfare  depends 
on  recognizing  the  common  human  sentiments  and  mo- 
tives, and  adjusting  our  actions  accordingly.  If  we  injure 
others  they  will  be  resentful  and  try  to  pay  us  back;  if 
we  are  proud  and  disdainful  they  will  dislike  and  speak  ill 
of  us;  if  we  treat  them  with  a  show  of  consideration  we 
shall  be  more  likely  to  get  out  of  them  what  we  want. 
Such  facts  are  familiar  to  everyone,  and  in  view  of  them 
we  are  often  able  to  lay  down  with  practical  universality 
various  principles  of  conduct.  So  long  as  men  live  in 
society  they  cannot  go  to  work  to  attain  their  ends  along 
lines  which  ignore  the  wishes  and  opinions  of  other  men, 
and  expect  to  get  away  with  it. 

Meanwhile  such  principles  are  still  as  yet  not  constitu- 
tive in  any  large  measure  of  the  good  life;  and  what  we 
are  most  anxious  to  discover  is  this  actual  content  of  the 
ends  of  living.  Along  what  lines  of  effort  and  activity, 
positive  and  concrete,  can  we  hope  to  find  the  satisfied 
life.  It  is  here  that  it  becomes  less  easy  to  lay  down  prin- 
ciples that  hold  with  anything  like  universality. 

The  Principle  of  Objective  Value. — In  order  to  clear 
the  ground,  I  shall  turn  to  begin  with  to  two  possible 
theories  about  the  positive  content  of  the  good  life,  both 
of  which  I  shall  find  occasion  to  question.  The  first  is  the 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  123 

very  plausible  claim  which  sets  out  to  find  the  governing 
principle  of  the  moral  life  in  terms  of  purely  objective 
good.  It  has  often  appeared  to  philosophers  and  to  moral 
enthusiasts  alike,  that  the  thing  we  ought  to  do,  the  life 
we  ought  to  aim  to  live,  is  that  which  shall  realize  in  the 
world  the  greatest  possible  quantity  of  value.  They  have 
looked  for  a  rule  of  life,  not  first  of  all  in  the  demands 
of  human  nature,  but  in  a  quantitative  calculation  of 
those  objects  of  approval  that  possess  objective  goodness. 
And  the  plausibility  of  this  becomes  most  apparent  in 
connection  with  our  natural  hesitation  to  give  an  affirma- 
tive answer  to  the  question:  Ought  I  to  be  content  with 
anything  short  of  the  maximum  of  good  within  my  power 
to  produce?  If  I  have  a  chance  to  create  either  more 
or  less  of  good  by  my  efforts,  can  I  reconcile  it  with  my 
conscience  knowingly  to  choose  the  less? 

Before  starting  to  consider  this,  we  should  first  make 
clear  that  we  are  not  interpreting  the  thesis  in  a  way  to 
beg  the  question.  Of  course  if  by  good  we  mean  "morally" 
good,  or  that  which  "ought  to  be,"  we  can  hardly  escape 
the  conviction  that  that  which  has  the  greater  claim  on 
our  duty  we  ought  to  do.  But  this  is  to  empty  the  sup- 
posed principle  of  any  practical  meaning.  As  a  prac- 
tical guide  what  it  needs  to  maintain  is,  that  "natural" 
good,  in  its  widest  and  most  comprehensive  sense,  is 
capable  of  summation,  and  that  our  sense  of  duty  arises 
only  when  we  have  completed  the  summation,  and  found 
on  what  side  the  maximum  of  natural  good  lies. 

But  when  we  keep  the  exact  nature  of  this  thesis  in 
mind,  it  gives  rise  to  various  doubts.  And  the  first  and 
most  obvious  objection  is,  that  it  presents  us  with  what 
on  the  practical  side  seems  a  hopeless  task.  How  in  the 
world  are  we  ever  going  to  find  in  the  concrete  an  answer 
to  the  problem:  Where  lies  the  greatest  amount  of 


THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

objective  good?  It  would  be  bad  enough  even  were  we  all 
agreed  on  the  comparison  of  various  goods,  and  knew  just 
how  much  weight  ought  to  attach  in  our  calculation  to 
the  creation  of  an  object  of  beauty,  say,  as  over  against 
an  equal  effort  spent  in  health-producing  exercise,  or  in 
giving  good  advice  to  our  friends — all  of  them  supposedly 
goods  of  a  sort.  The  mere  quantitative  complexity  is 
itself  enough  to  destroy  any  real  chance  of  ever  coming 
to  a  rational  conclusion.  To  be  certain  that  we  had  the 
real  good  in  hand,  and  that  no  element  had  escaped  us, 
we  should  have  practically  to  exhaust  the  resources  of  the 
universe.  Ethics,  to  be  sure,  need  not  set  its  demand 
quite  so  high  as  this.  It  might  compromise  by  being  con- 
tent with  such  factors  as  the  human  mind  could  reason- 
ably be  expected  to  lay  hold  of.  But  even  this  would  at 
each  moment  of  choice  set  a  painful  and  laborious  task 
of  calculation,  which  at  least  would  be  likely  to  prove 
fatal  to  the  freshness  and  spontaneity  of  the  moral  life. 
Meanwhile  the  supposition  that  the  factors,  though 
numerous,  are  in  themselves  unambiguous,  and  that  there 
is  no  particular  difficulty  in  ranking  simple  goods,  is  of 
course  quite  contrary  to  fact.  Not  only  do  men  fail  to 
agree,  but  no  man  agrees  with  himself  at  all  times ;  and 
often  his  judgment  about  the  relative  value  of  things  is 
in  the  highest  degree  tentative  and  uncertain. 

But  there  is  a  more  fundamental  defect  in  the  method 
proposed.  It  is  important,  if  we  are  ever  to  expect  any 
definite  guidance  in  the  good  life,  and  are  not  to  be  put 
off  with  abstractions,  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  good 
is,  up  to  a  point,  incurably  specific  and  individual,  and 
that  no  universal  receipt  is  anywhere  to  be  discovered. 
The  sort  of  life  which  will  satisfy  me  is  not  the  sort  that 
will  satisfy  you;  and  this  difference  of  interest  and  tem- 
perament in  men  is  the  first  thing  to  take  into  view  when 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  125 

we  are  pretending  to  deal  with  life  in  the  concrete.  One 
of  the  most  serious  defects  of  ethical  thought  has  been  its 
imperfect  vision  for  the  multiplicity  of  human  ideals.  In 
its  sense  for  the  urgent  need  of  introducing  unity  and 
harmony  into  the  ethical  experience,  it  has  tended  to 
ignore  the  individual  aspect  which  ideals  must  take  on 
before  they  are  fit  to  stand  for  anything  that  real  human 
beings  actually  want.  In  this  tendency  it  has  been  backed 
and  abetted  by  one  of  the  most  universal  of  human  fail- 
ings. It  is  a  late  virtue  in  human  history,  acquired  with 
much  difficulty,  to  look  with  complacence  on  interests  and 
types  of  life  different  from  one's  own.  The  principle,  Live 
and  let  live,  seldom  has  played  any  but  a  very  modest 
role;  the  natural  human  disposition  is  to  despise  and 
hit  out  at  preferences  that  do  not  fall  in  with  one's  per- 
sonal or  parochial  notions.  Indeed  the  intolerance  is  apt 
to  be  more  pronounced  in  proportion  as  ideals  are  held 
more  strongly  and  sincerely.  The  easygoing  man  of  the 
world  may  be  willing  to  grant  the  same  indulgence  to  his 
neighbors  that  he  claims  for  himself ;  but  the  idealist,  the 
enthusiast,  is  more  often  than  not  so  intrigued  with  his 
own  more  excellent  way  that  he  is  impatient  of  a  different 
valuation,  even  when  he  is  not  ready  to  set  to  work  to 
make  it  practically  as  unpleasant  as  possible  for  those 
who  show  other  preferences. 

In  view  of  the  plain  fact,  then,  that  men  are  differently 
built,  with  a  bent  toward  widely  various  kinds  of  work  and 
interest,  no  rational  principle  can  possibly  tell  us  what 
sort  of  life  in  the  concrete  a  man  is  suited  to.  The  true 
fact  lies  below  the  surface  of  the  rational  consciousness, 
and  can  be  discovered  only  by  an  experiment  in  living. 
Such  experimenting  every  man  has  in  the  end  to  do  for 
himself;  and  the  result  at  which  he  arrives  will  be  true 
only  for  himself,  and  not  for  his  neighbors.  This  personal 


126  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

element  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  carry  con- 
stantly in  mind  as  a  limiting  condition  in  the  search  for 
principles,  if  we  are  to  expect  results  that  in  practice  will 
be  recognized  by  the  common  man  as  really  throwing  light 
on  the  course  of  his  daily  conduct,  and  that  in  theory 
steer  clear  of  a  despotism  of  the  single  ideal.  Since  there 
is  usually  a  twist  to  our  nature  which  makes  a  contented 
life  more  possible  in  some  directions  than  in  others,  as  well 
as  limitations  of  talent  and  energy  which  determine  what 
results  for  us  are  humanly  possible,  or  possible  only  as 
we  pass  beyond  the  range  of  normally  functioning  energy, 
and  succeed  at  the  expense  of  strain,  and  overexertion, 
and  their  attendant  ills,  reason,  if  it  is  reasonable,  will 
take  account  of  these  things.  There  are  innumerable  ways 
of  accomplishing  good  in  the  world,  with  wide  differences 
of  quantitative  result.  And  it  is  not  reasonable  to  call 
upon  any  man  to  adjust  his  own  life  to  these  objective 
possibilities  regardless  of  the  sort  of  thing  for  which  he 
is  himself  particularly  fitted,  his  fitness  being  evidenced 
to  himself  in  the  end  by  the  call  he  feels,  and  the  assured 
content  that  comes  to  him  in  the  process. 

Such  an  insistence  on  individual  liking  as  the  primary 
determinant  of  the  ideal  will  doubtless  seem  to  some  too 
little  strenuous,  and  too  indifferent  to  the  lofty  character 
of  duty  and  the  dominant  claims  of  the  good.  It  is  always 
possible  to  bring  about  in  oneself  a  feeling  of  unworthi- 
ness  by  contrasting  the  needs  of  the  world  with  the  actual 
achievements  of  any  individual  life,  and  so  to  leave  an 
uneasy  sense  that  we  have  no  right  to  insist  on  personal 
claims  to  satisfaction.  Such  a  feeling  is  a  useful  element 
in  human  nature  for  heightening  the  quality  of  experi- 
ence, and  spurring  men  to  larger  endeavor.  But  like  any 
other  human  feeling  it  will,  if  we  detach  it  from  its  instru- 
mental service  and  hold  it  alone  before  the  mind,  get  out 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  127 

of  perspective,  and  carry  an  emotional  insistence  which 
reason  fails  to  justify.  It  is  perhaps  best  answered  by 
letting  it  have  in  imagination  its  way,  and  then  asking 
whether  the  results  appeal  to  our  sense  of  approval.  And 
when  I  ask,  Does  the  life  which  in  spite  of  achievement  fails 
of  permanent  content  and  satisfaction  in  the  career  which 
it  has  chosen  really  justify  itself  to  me  as  a  good  life,  one 
that  is  successful  and  that  has  attained  its  end?  I  can 
only  reply  that  it  does  not. 

It  is  no  doubt  not  unusual  to  hear  it  urged  that  only 
in  a  lifelong  sacrifice  of  personal  interests  does  true  satis- 
faction lie.  And  that  there  are  natures  of  which  this 
may  be  so  is  very  probable.  The  feeling  of  unworthiness 
sometimes  becomes  so  abnormally  acute  as  to  spoil  the 
most  innocent  forms  of  personal  realization,  and  lead  to 
a  constant  crucifixion  of  the  natural  desires.  But  this  is 
obviously  not  true  of  mankind  generally.  And  as  against 
this  we  may  note  the  frequent  tendency  of  the  moral  judg- 
ment to  condemn  explicitly  a  notion  of  life  which  measures 
success  in  quantitative  terms.  One  of  the  things  that 
ethical  wisdom  is  constantly  called  upon  to  combat  is  this 
belief  that  mere  attainment,  work  done,  going  after 
results,  is  the  true  way  of  life,  even  though  in  themselves 
these  results  are  what  we  commonly  approve  as  good. 
Many  men  are  plainly  missing  the  good  of  life  because 
they  do  not  realize  that  their  "success"  is  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  amount  of  real  satisfaction  they  have  picked 
up  on  the  way. 

But  still,  it  may  be  said,  is  there  not  in  fact  a  value 
in  achievement  even  apart  from  whether  it  makes  the  man 
who  does  the  work  happy  in  the  doing?  To  be  sure  there 
is — for  other  people.  But  a  theory  which  starts  to  find 
the  clue  to  a  successful  life  in  its  social  effects  can  at 
least  not  universalize  itself.  What  of  these  others  who 


128  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

enjoy  the  fruits  of  a  man's  unenjoying  toils?  Why  should 
they  have  more  enjoyment  than  he?  And  if  they  too  are 
to  sacrifice  happiness  in  work  to  the  creation  of  com- 
modities for  their  neighbors,  in  the  end  everybody  alike 
fails  of  satisfaction.  But  also  there  is  an  empirical 
answer  which  goes  a  long  way  toward  rebutting  such  a 
claim — the  fact  that  on  the  whole,  and  in  the  long  run, 
it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  sum  total  of  goods  is  really 
increased  by  toil  which  is  not  the  outcome  of  personal 
appreciation.  Unless  one  is  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  pure 
quantity,  he  must  recognize  that  a  great  deal  of  even 
conscientious  work  is  done  which  the  world  would  be  quite 
as  well  off  without.  Quality,  on  the  other  hand,  almost 
invariably  comes  from  the  man  who  is  interested  in  his  job. 
And  there  is  a  further  distinction  which  may  help  to 
quiet  moralistic  scruples.  The  distinction  is  that  between 
our  career  in  the  large,  in  so  far  as  we  can  aim  at  it  with 
conscious  deliberation  and  foresight,  and  the  emergencies 
which,  in  a  world  like  the  present  one,  constantly  intrude 
themselves  upon  us.  These  last  do  present  themselves  not 
seldom  to  our  natural  moral  feeling  as  exceptions  to  the 
general  principle  of  "living  one's  own  life."  When  such 
occasions  arise  it  often,  to  be  sure,  is  possible  to  evade 
the  responsibilities  that  would  lead  us  into  uncongenial 
fields,  and  to  stick  to  the  pleasanter  paths  to  which  our 
natural  likings  point  us;  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  pro- 
nounce upon  the  nature  of  what  in  such  a  case  it  is  our 
duty  to  choose.  This  is  indeed  indeterminable  except  in 
view  of  the  special  circumstances  of  the  particular  situa- 
tion. Frequently  a  wrong  perspective  makes  such  exter- 
nal claims  seem  far  more  important  than  they  really  are, 
and  they  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  our 
fixed  plans  and  to  dissipate  our  lives.  Many  men,  and 
perhaps  more  women,  are  led  by  the  call  of  duty — which 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  129 

often  means  no  more  than  convention  and  popular  expecta- 
tion— to  sacrifice  for  the  mere  name  of  service  the  very 
heart  of  personal  good ;  we  honor  their  conscientiousness, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  respect  their  judgment.  Probably  a 
fair  proportion  of  the  distractions  which  tempt  us  from 
our  personal  aims  are  of  this  illusory  nature.  But  cer- 
tainly this  is  not  true  of  all.  And  there  will  be  little 
question  that  while  we  do  not  call  upon  people  in  the 
abstract  to  sacrifice  to  impersonal  demands  the  interests 
which  appeal  to  them  individually,  we  do  normally  tend 
to  despise  the  man  who  cannot  on  occasion,  for  due  cause 
shown,  subordinate  his  private  scheme  of  life  to  some 
larger  and  less  personally  appealing  cause.  I  doubt  if 
there  would  be  any  general  condemnation  of  the  life  of 
the  recluse,  for  example.  One  who  felt  that  for  him  the 
good  was  to  be  attained  by  withdrawing  from  the  con- 
flict of  the  world  would  not  be  regarded  as  of  the  highest 
human  type ;  but  he  hardly  would  of  necessity  be  morally 
despised.  But  a  recluse  who  should  persist  in  his  seclusion 
when  he  might  render  important  service  to  his  friends 
or  country  would  most  certainly  arouse  in  us  a  feeling 
of  moral  reprobation. 

Situations  the  same  in  principle  arise  constantly  in  the 
course  of  the  most  normal  living.  The  very  commitment 
to  a  given  line  of  conduct  automatically  gives  rise  to 
responsibilities  which  do  not  limit  themselves  to  our  pre- 
arranged plans.  And  when  responsibilities  are  assumed, 
or  imposed,  we  cannot  judge  the  man  who  does  not  meet 
them  with  some  regard  to  the  relative  importance  of  the 
interests  involved,  without  a  feeling  of  distaste.  To 
sacrifice  everything  to  the  design  of  keeping  his  career 
safe  would  mark  him  out  not  only  in  the  minds  of  others, 
but,  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  reasonable  being,  in  his  own  mind, 
as  indefensibly  narrow  and  petty  in  his  outlook.  Here 


130  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

lies  the  truth  contained  in  the  ethical  principle,  "my  voca- 
tion and  its  duties."  Such  a  principle  is  seriously  defective 
in  the  form  in  which  it  has  usually  been  defended,  because 
it  thinks  of  my  "vocation"  as  settled  for  me.  It  minimizes 
the  essential  need  that  I  should  be  enabled  to  choose  my 
own  vocation  and  adopt  it  freely,  and  so  lends  itself  to  a 
political  and  industrial  conservatism  But  when  we  have 
once  allowed  that  a  vocation  is  something  which  ought 
itself  to  be  determined  from  within,  and  that  social 
arrangements  should  be  directed  to  this  end,  there  still 
remains  a  large  field  within  which,  if  I  am  to  be  able  to 
retain  my  self-respect,  duty  must  help  to  shape  my  life  as 
well  as  inclination;  since  a  vocation,  once  assumed,  can 
only  be  carried  on  in  a  world  constantly  presenting  me 
with  unwelcome  alternatives,  which  however  I  can  ignore 
only  at  the  risk  of  feeling  degraded  in  my  own  eyes.  Nor 
is  it  possible  of  course  ever  to  free  oneself  entirely  from 
the  coercion  of  circumstances  even  in  the  choice  of  a 
vocation  at  the  start.  A  man  is  not  born  into  a  void.  He 
finds  himself  at  the  very  beginning  in  determinate  sur- 
roundings, whose  particularity  is  never  likely  to  be  wholly 
eliminated  in  the  interests  of  social  equality;  and  these 
are  themselves  among  the  things  that  create  responsibili- 
ties to  limit  free  guidance  from  within. 

Circumstances  may  even  at  times  be  so  compelling  as  in 
the  end  to  sacrifice  a  man  to  his  duties,  and  leave  little 
room  for  the  free  play  of  his  private  will.  A  man  of  con- 
science born  to  high  rank  or  vast  wealth,  and  so  made 
responsible  for  large  interests  in  terms  of  possible  human 
welfare,  or  one  whom  chance  has  shouldered  with  an  enter- 
prise which  it  then  seems  cowardly  to  desert,  or  who  is 
conscious  in  himself  of  powers  to  meet  some  crisis  for 
which  no  one  else  seems  to  have  the  ability  or  the  will, 
may  find  it  his  duty  to  sacrifice  those  ends  that  really  he  is 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  131 

eager  for,  and  endure,  in  his  vocation,  the  exactions  of 
an  uncongenial  taskmaster.  One  might  fairly  be  asked  to 
test  such  an  instance  very  carefully,  and  first  make  sure 
that  he  is  not  under  the  influence  of  the  romantic  illusion. 
It  is  not  always  that  the  facts  bear  out  this  assumption 
of  a  man's  indispensableness ;  and  it  may  very  well  be 
false  pride,  or  an  unacknowledged  hankering  after  all  for 
the  perquisites  of  his  position,  which  prevents  him  from 
finding  a  substitute  and  turning  to  the  ways  that  attract 
him.  Nevertheless  in  principle  the  thing  does  exist.  And 
where  it  exists,  it  will  seem  to  reverse  at  times  the  relative 
rank  of  duty  and  inclination,  and  substitute  considera- 
tions of  purely  obj  ective  value  for  the  more  personal 
appeal  of  this  or  that  particular  form  of  good.  But  I 
still  contend  that  this  is  an  exception,  and  that  normally 
the  place  of  duty  is  subordinate  to  the  ends  chosen  for  us 
by  our  constitution. 

The  ideal  of  "living  one's  own  life,"  then,  is  not  one 
to  be  accepted  uncritically ;  it  needs  limitations  and  quali- 
fications. But  as,  to  justify  these  limits  further,  we  need 
the  help  of  principles  not  so  far  discovered,  I  shall  post- 
pone any  further  remarks  to  a  later  point.  All  I  am  con- 
cerned at  present  to  maintain  is,  that  in  general  the  good 
life  is  not  an  abstraction,  but  the  life  that  satisfies  some 
individual  man ;  and  he  therefore  can  expect  no  real  guid- 
ance till  he  sees  the  relevancy  to  the  problem  of  the  per- 
sonal demands  that  alone  give  "satisfaction"  a  meaning. 
And  accordingly  the  attempt  to  meet  the  problem  of  duty 
by  a  purely  objective  and  impersonal  calculation  of  the 
good  is  bound  to  be  a  failure. 

The  Principle  of  Harmony. — If  therefore  we  are  to 
discover  principles  that  will  help  in  assigning  actual  con- 
tent to  the  good  life,  it  must  be  in  connection  with  a  scru- 
tiny of  human  nature  itself,  on  the  side  of  its  concrete 


132  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

springs  of  action.  Here  interests  of  various  kinds  exist 
which  constitute  my  being ;  can  we  lay  down  generally  how 
they  must  be  utilized,  or  are  we  left  just  with  suggestions 
of  possible  satisfaction,  which  each  man  has  then  experi- 
mentally to  test  out  for  himself  ? 

The  first  and  most  obvious  possibility  is  one  that  has 
already  been  met  in  connection  with  the  self-realization 
formula.  If  competing  interests  are  present,  it  might 
seem  that  if  we  can  hit  upon  some  adjustment  that  will 
measurably  satisfy  both,  we  are  better  off  than  if  we  had 
to  sacrifice  one  to  the  other.  Inclusiveness,  therefore,  or 
rational  completeness  and  harmony,  has  been  a  familiar 
thesis  of  ethical  systems ;  and  it  lends  itself  to  a  practical 
ideal  of  life  which  has  had  a  wide  vogue. 

But  when  we  translate  this  into  concrete  situations,  we 
discover  empirically  that  at  least  it  cannot  be  followed 
blindly.  Purely  as  a  matter  of  expediency  and  fact,  it 
may  often  seem  the  wiser  course  to  sacrifice  some  desires 
to  others.  To  combine  them  will  inevitably  in  many 
instances  be  possible  only  through  a  compromise  which 
abates  something  of  their  full  pretensions ;  and  quite  con- 
ceivably the  sum  of  losses  may  be  greater  than  if  we  had 
frankly  thrown  overboard  the  weaker  interest.  Indeed 
it  would  seem  as  if  this  were  almost  necessarily  true  when 
we  take  things  on  a  scale  large  enough.  The  general 
experience  of  mankind  bears  out  the  claim  that  the  aver- 
age person,  at  least,  is  more  likely  to  find  satisfaction 
through  self-limitation,  than  by  spreading  himself  out  too 
thin.  We  should  doubtless  like,  if  we  could,  to  develop 
all  our  tastes  ;  but  the  pressure  of  facts  cannot  be  escaped. 
Our  powers  are  not  capable  indefinitely  of  being  extended, 
and  the  outer  world  takes  no  great  apparent  interest  in 
rendering  successful  compromises  always  easy ;  sacrifice 
is  a  plain  necessity.  It  need  not  be  sacrifice  of  the  utmost 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  133 

possible  good.  But  certainly  it  is  a  sacrifice  of  the  utmost 
conceivable  good.  And  my  point  is  just  that  the  limits 
of  the  possible,  things  being  what  they  are,  are  too  strait- 
ened to  make  it  feasible  to  carry  out  strictly  the  prin- 
ciple of  a  full  and  rounded  self-development  with  no  sacri- 
fice of  subordinate  parts. 

Nor  do  I  think  an  unbiased  judgment  necessarily  con- 
demns a  very  considerable  disproportion  in  the  conduct 
of  our  lives  even  when  this  might  conceivably  have  been 
avoided,  provided  the  access  of  satisfaction  is  thereby 
increased.  Most  people  are  compelled  by  the  mere  fact 
of  economic  pressure  to  make  the  choice  constantly 
between  alternative  goods ;  and  if  a  man  may  be  supposed 
to  have  a  genuine  passion  for  first  editions  or  Japanese 
prints,  and  elects  to  gratify  his  taste  at  the  cost  of  severe 
retrenchments  in  other  lines,  it  would  seem  pedantic  to 
blame  him  on  no  better  ground  than  the  abstract  admira- 
bleness  of  a  balanced  expenditure. 

There  is  indeed  a  secondary  sense  in  which  the  process 
of  self-limitation  may  easily  go  farther  than  is  desirable 
or  necessary.  Limitation  is  the  common  lot;  but  limita- 
tion is  not  the  same  as  narrowness.  The  narrow  man  is 
the  man  who  not  only  decides  that  he  cannot  do  every- 
thing, and  so  specializes ;  he  also  thereupon  loses  interest 
in  the  things  he  has  rejected,  and  so  limits  mental  outlook 
and  sympathy  as  well  as  action.  And  there  really  is  no 
reason  why  this  should  be,  or  why  one  should  not  continue 
to  cultivate  a  friendly  concern  for  many  things  in  which 
he  cannot  hope  to  take  an  active  part.  He  does  not  even 
need  to  follow  them  closely,  so  long  as  he  maintains  an 
open  and  receptive  mind.  But  because  we  can  still  retain 
our  interest  in  this  sense,  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that 
there  has  been  no  sacrifice  in  the  sense  the  principle  depre- 
cates. The  interest  of  mental  participation  is  not  the 


134  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

interest  of  active  participation.  I  may  retain  a  fondness 
for  concerts,  and  still  regret  that  I  was  unable  to  carry 
on  my  music;  a  sympathy  with  literary,  or  political,  or 
benevolent  enterprises  no  more  satisfies  my  suppressed 
ambitions  along  such  lines,  than  a  sympathy  for  lovers  is 
a  substitute  for  marriage. 

Of  course  it  is  so  that  by  taking  the  matter  firmly  in 
hand,  and  making  it  the  one  business  of  his  life  to  secure 
for  himself  a  fully  rounded  development,  a  man  may  come 
indefinitely  closer  to  the  goal,  even  if  it  remains  in  strict- 
ness unattainable.  This  stands  as  one  of  the  accredited 
human  ideals.  But  it  very  certainly  would  not  be  generally 
accepted  as  the  one  ideal  by  which  all  others  are  to  be 
tested.  And  it  has  plain  deficiencies  of  its  own.  It  can 
be  lived  most  successfully  where  the  full  life  is  itself  the 
expression  of  a  narrow  and  special  interest.  Goethe  is 
likely  for  a  long  time  to  remain  the  best  exemplar  of  the 
type;  and  we  may  tolerate  in  a  man  like  Goethe  what  in 
the  mere  dilettante  we  should  cordially  detest,  because 
after  all  Goethe  is  always  the  workman,  the  artist.  He  is 
not  living  simply  for  the  sake  of  his  own  beautiful  life,  but 
to  utilize  the  results  of  experience  for  literary  purposes ; 
it  is  his  literary  specialization  which  excuses,  in  so  far 
as  it  does  excuse,  the  sentimentalisms  of  the  "full  life." 
But  even  in  Goethe  the  ideal  does  not  fully  stand  the  test 
of  reflective  appreciation.  Self-realization  is  after  all 
self-centered,  and  therefore  petty  when  we  put  it  along- 
side the  bigger  world.  "Very  early,"  writes  Margaret 
Fuller  of  herself,  "I  knew  that  the  only  object  in  life  was 
to  grow."  To  grow  is  certainly  much  to  be  desired.  But 
to  make  the  inner  process  of  growth  itself  the  professed 
object  of  ambition  is  just  the  dubious  point  in  the  ideal; 
it  assumes  that  the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  universe 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  135 

is  oneself — a  natural  supposition  which  experience  may 
be  expected  to  dispose  us  to  find  questionable. 

For  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  taking  a  wide 
interest  in  things  because  they  are  interesting,  and  taking 
a  wide  interest  because  the  interests  are  ours,  and  what  we 
have  in  view  is  to  develop  our  capacities.  The  last  motive 
is  useful  as  a  secondary  motive,  which  serves  incidentally 
to  correct  our  natural  laziness.  But  to  transform  it  into 
the  one  main  thing  worth  seeking  is  to  get  it  badly  out  of 
perspective.  Naturally  when  we  take  an  interest  in  things 
the  interest  is  ours.  But  it  is  nevertheless  in  having  our 
eyes  fixed  on  the  objective  facts  that  a  healthy  interest 
consists,  and  not  on  the  relation  to  ourselves.  It  might 
perhaps  be  held  that  such  objective  interests  are  all  that 
the  principle  of  "inclusiveness"  really  demands,  and  that 
it  can  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  their  harmonious  adjust- 
ment. But  in  point  of  fact  its  logic  lends  itself  almost 
inevitably  to  the  ^//-realization  ideal.  If  the  "complete 
life"  is  our  goal,  then  it  is  bound  to  be  a  matter  of  regret 
if  any  part  of  ourselves  fails  of  development;  and  our 
eyes  will  need  constantly  to  be  directed  inward  to  guard 
against  a  loss  of  opportunity  through  inadvertence.  A 
disinterested  interest  in  things,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more 
than  likely  to  supplant  and  interfere  with  the  compro- 
mising instinct.  In  the  pressure  of  weighty  issues  grip- 
ping our  attention  lesser  matters  will  often  seem  imperti- 
nent, and  the  demand  that  we  salvage  all  our  personal 
assets  rather  trivial.  And  where  an  interest  in  things 
and  issues  holds  us,  we  can  afford  such  a  large  indiffer- 
ence. If  I  do  not  see  to  my  own  cultivation  no  one  will 
attend  to  it  for  me,  and  the  end  remains  unattained.  But 
causes  may  still  be  achieved  apart  from  me  by  others,  and 
perhaps  even  better  achieved.  It  would  be  presumptuous 


136  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

to  suppose  that  because  I  am  not  there  to  look  after  things 
they  will  not  be  done;  and  so  without  self-condemnation 
I  can  usually  make  my  option  for  the  special  interest  that 
is  mine,  and  still  feel  that  the  world  is  safe. 

There  is  no  need  to  deny  that  the  principle  of  "all- 
roundness"  has  an  important  suggestive  value.  Most  men 
need  to  be  reminded  that  the  potentialities  of  life  are 
greatly  in  excess  of  present  attainment,  and  that  if  they 
are  overlooking  some  possible  source  of  added  interest 
they  are  acting  short-sightedly.  But  many  suggestions 
after  all  will  come  to  nothing ;  and  what  actually  ministers 
most  to  the  sense  of  living,  personal  experiment  alone  can 
determine.  Certainly  if  the  all-round  life  is  taken  to 
mean  that  each  type  of  interest  is  deserving  of  equal  culti- 
vation, it  will  work  more  harm  than  good.  All  it  can 
fairly  intend  to  say  is,  that  no  element  of  our  nature  should 
be  left  wholly  without  exercise.  And  this  is  indeed  a 
rule  of  prudence,  to  the  extent  that  we  should  give  every 
side  a  fair  chance  to  show  its  value.  It  should  clearly  be 
one  of  the  main  ends  of  a  genuine  education  that  no  one 
be  left  without  a  taste,  at  least,  of  the  typical  sorts  of 
human  interest,  since  otherwise  he  cannot  be  sure  he  is 
not  missing  his  vocation. 

But  having  had  their  chance,  it  is  possible,  and  even 
probable,  that  some  will  do  more  service  by  thereafter 
being  dropped.  It  is  a  less  questionable  meaning  of  the 
self-realization  type  of  formula  if  we  take  it  as  in  sub- 
stance rather  this,  that  the  successful  life  will  need  to  be 
organized.  But  the  basis  of  the  organization  will  much 
better  be  looked  for,  not  in  the  "self,"  but  in  a  controlling 
interest  or  task.  The  only  way  to  escape  distraction,  dis- 
sipation of  energy,  constant  hesitation  and  vacillation 
through  the  need  of  canvassing  over  again  at  each  new 
crisis  the  relative  value  to  be  set  on  competing  claims,  is 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  137 

that  a  man  commit  himself,  and  make  up  his  mind  that 
here  rather  than  there  the  interest  lies  which  is  capable 
of  gripping  him  and  keeping  him  steadily  and  pleasantly 
at  his  work,  without  a  constant  unsettling  of  the  condi- 
tions of  effective  and  forward-moving  action.  Here  we 
have  a  real  principle  of  subordination;  other  things  are 
good  in  proportion  as  they  lend  themselves  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  main  design,  or  at  least  do  not  actively 
impede  it.  Subordination  to  the  "self,"  on  the  other 
hand,  has  no  plain  meaning,  unless  we  fall  back  on  the 
outworn  notion  of  "faculties"  standing  to  one  another 
in  some  inherent  relationship  of  worth.  As  a  working 
tool,  the  "whole"  is  thus  no  one  standard  fact  of  human 
nature.  Neither  the  whole,  nor  what  is  meant  in  the  con- 
crete by  subordination  to  the  whole,  is  determinable  until 
the  particular  work  is  chosen;  and  what  that  central 
organizing  fact  shall  be  we  cannot  discover  without  appeal 
to  the  individual  case. 

As  there  seems  to  be  no  standard  rule  of  subordination 
that  can  be  applied  to  the  elements  of  every  life,  so  it  is 
not  easy  to  establish  generally  the  claim,  in  connection 
with  any  sort  of  interest  in  particular,  that  it  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  best  life  for  every  man.  We  may  argue 
that  if  an  impulse  is  given  no  exercise  it  will  persist  as  an 
unappeased  craving  to  trouble  life  and  stir  up  discontent ; 
and  in  case  some  particular  impulse  actually  acts  in  this 
way  in  a  given  man,  this  is  indeed  in  so  far  a  reason  for 
him  to  take  it  into  account.  But  it  would  be  unsafe  to 
generalize.  In  nearly  everyone  there  are  interests  nat- 
urally so  weak  that  if  left  to  themselves  they  tend  to 
die  out.  This  is  much  less  likely  to  be  true  of  fundamental 
bodily  instincts,  for  example,  that  of  sex.  But  even  in 
such  a  case  there  is  no  absolute  rule  that  can  safely  be 
laid  down.  Not  only  do  men  differ  here  as  elsewhere,  but 


138  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

circumstances  may  at  times  dictate  suppression  as  neces- 
sary to  the  satisfied  life,  since  we  have  seen  that  "satis- 
faction" does  not  need  to  mean  painlessness,  or  an  entire 
absence  of  sacrifice. 

Another  point  on  which  to  argue  that  some  cultivation 
of  a  potential  interest  is  bound  to  be  an  addition  to  life 
is  the  undoubted  fact  that,  if  it  is  potentially  interesting, 
it  is  a  positive  source  of  pleasure.  But  while  the  fact  is 
so,  the  inference  is  doubtful,  since  the  pleasure  it  adds 
may  be  far  less  than  could  have  been  secured  from  rival 
sources.  On  the  whole  the  best  ground  for  urging  that 
no  aspect  of  human  nature  should  be  left  undeveloped,  is 
that  the  various  sides  of  life  are  so  interrelated  that  each 
may  suffer  to  some  extent  when  other  sides  are  atrophied. 
This  is  clearly  so  of  such  a  thing  as  intellectual  capacity ; 
it  appears  equally,  though  less  forcibly,  in  other  human 
traits.  Thus  when  art  is  thought  of  as  a  separate  inter- 
est, the  case  is  none  too  strong  for  urging  every  man 
alike  to  cultivate  it.  But  if  the  niceness  of  appreciation 
and  disinterestedness  of  attitude  which  art  develops  is 
a  requirement  in  practical  and  moral  life  as  well,  there 
might  be  ground  for  holding  that,  with  no  aesthetic  train- 
ing at  all,  a  man  is  sensibly  missing  his  full  possibilities 
of  good.  But  at  best  this  leaves  the  "principle"  very 
vague  and  indeterminate.  It  goes  very  little  distance 
indeed  toward  telling  us  how  far  we  are  to  cultivate  a 
given  interest,  and  in  what  relation  it  should  stand  to 
other  aspects  of  life. 

The  Source  of  Constitutive  Principles. — But  while  from 
the  facts  of  positive  desire  there  seems  little  direct  guid- 
ance in  principle,  without  a  primary  reliance  on  the 
process  of  experimentation  and  the  lead  of  personal  de- 
mands, the  case  is  improved  substantially  when  we  turn 
to  those  negative  emotional  constituents  to  which  has 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS  139 

been  traced  the  peculiar  character  of  the  moral  ought. 
While  it  is  only  hesitatingly  that  I  can  say  to  a  man,  You 
must  gratify  this  positive  propensity  if  you  are  to  hope 
for  the  most  out  of  life — since  it  depends  a  great  deal 
upon  the  relative  strength  of  the  propensities  in  him,  and 
the  circumstances  in  which  his  life  is  set — it  is  usually 
much  safer  to  lay  it  down  generally  that,  in  living  the 
varied  life  of  desire,  he  needs  to  take  account  of  negative 
and  moralistic  limitations,  under  penalty  of  a  sense  of 
self-condemnation  which  renders  contentment  improbable. 
It  is  accordingly  in  connection  with  such  restraining 
feelings,  normally  ineradicable  from  human  nature,  that 
we  may  look  for  the  sort  of  principle  that  ethics  mainly 
is  after  to  help  determine  the  actual  content  of  successful 
living.  And  it  will  appear  that  this  has  been  largely 
implicated  in  the  previous  discussion.  Thus  the  case 
against  an  all-round  culture  as  a  specific  ideal  rested 
mainly  on  the  fact  that,  owing  to  its  absorption  in  self- 
culture,  it  falls  under  the  condemnation  of  the  ethical 
judgment  of  triviality.  But  equally  on  the  other  hand 
we  condemn  for  the  same  reason  too  ready  an  acquiescence 
in  a  one-sided  interest,  as  not  consistent  with  our  sense 
of  the  significance  and  dignity  of  man  and  his  life;  so 
that  we  do  have  a  principled  ground  for  accepting  "all- 
roundness"  as  a  suggestive  guide,  even  if  it  has  to  be  left 
to  the  individual  case  to  determine  what  the  ideal  is  to 
mean.  Similarly  of  the  claims  upon  us  of  any  interest 
or  capacity  in  particular.  We  may  find  difficulty  in 
enforcing  an  interest  simply  on  the  basis  of  its  positive 
addition  to  the  satisfied  content  of  experience.  But  add 
to  this  the  need  of  avoiding  certain  negative  sources  of 
dissatisfaction,  and  usually  it  does  not  fail  in  the  large 
to  get  a  standing.  Thus  active  benevolence  in  one's 
scheme  of  life  has  a  somewhat  precarious  foundation  in 


140  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  pleasures  of  benevolence.  These  are  real  pleasures, 
and  when  they  are  felt  as  such  they  become  self-evidently 
a  part  of  the  good.  But  if  a  man  does  not  happen  to  feel 
them  acutely,  you  cannot  easily  argue  with  him  that  he 
is  missing  thereby  the  good  life.  He  will  tell  you,  and 
perhaps  truly,  that  he  gets  greater  pleasure  in  other  and 
inconsistent  ways.  Nor  is  it  argumentatively  certain  that 
the  cultivation  of  benevolence  is  demanded  by  the  claims 
of  enlightened  self-interest;  on  the  whole,  the  careers  of 
the  most  successful  men  of  affairs  do  not  seem  to  bear 
this  out.  But  it  is  also  open  to  point  out  that  a  man  is,  too, 
a  creature  capable  of  being  affected,  even  against  his  will, 
by  sympathy  or  a  sense  of  justice,  and  that  to  go  ahead 
without  any  reference  to  this  emotional  capacity  is  to  lay 
oneself  open  to  unpleasant  memories  ;  or,  again,  that  social 
good  is  too  necessary  an  element  in  the  significance  of 
human  standards  to  be  left  out  of  account  if  a  man  wants 
to  retain  his  self-respect  and  pleasure  in  his  work. 

True,  these  feelings  also  differ  in  different  men;  and 
one  cannot  prophesy  securely  just  how  a  given  man's 
"conscience"  will  work.  But  there  is  one  significant  point 
about  them.  The  pleasures  of  desire  depend  upon  the 
active  working  of  desire ;  and  this  is  temporary  and  fluc- 
tuating. But  the  moral  emotions,  just  because  they  arise 
in  a  contemplative  or  reflective  situation,  are  less  amen- 
able to  circumstance.  They  are  not  exhausted  by  indul- 
gence, but  stand  ready  to  work  whenever  we  stop  to 
think;  and  so  they  grow  stronger  as  the  more  insistent 
and  individualistic  cravings  become  quiescent.  And  since, 
for  a  rational  mind,  satisfaction  comes  increasingly  to 
lie  less  in  that  which  is  simply  pleasant  while  it  lasts,  and 
more  in  what  will  "remember  well,"  by  their  influence  on 
approval  they  get  an  intimate  relation  to  our  judgments 
about  ourselves,  out  of  proportion  to  their  own  relatively 


PRINCIPLES  IN  ETHICS 

weak  character.  After  the  tumult  and  the  shouting  are 
over,  and  a  man  settles  back  to  count  his  gains,  he  can, 
if  he  has  real  intelligence,  hardly  fail  in  a  quiet  moment 
to  note  if  his  acts  have  violated  persistent  human  sympa- 
thies, or  if  the  ends  he  has  aimed  at  fail  to  measure  up  to 
a  satisfying  human  standard.  And  as  this  affects  his 
permanent  judgment,  the  feelings  in  question,  even  though 
they  have  less  influence  than  might  be  thought  desirable 
on  immediate  action,  do  come  to  be  central  to  man's 
ethical  ideals,  and  so  in  the  long  run  influence  conduct 
also. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    APPLICATION    OF    ETHICAL    PRINCIPLES 

An  Illustration  of  the  Use  of  Principles. — The  general 
conclusion  of  the  preceding  chapter  has  been,  that  because 
the  more  positive  and  individualistic  claims  of  the  good 
are  dependent  on  desire,  which  varies  widely,  and  inno- 
cently, in  various  men,  it  is  in  the  peculiarly  moralistic 
field,  constituted  by  those  restraining  elements  of  human 
nature  which  issue  in  the  judgment  of  the  moral  ought, 
that  most  of  the  constitutive  principles  of  ethics  capable 
of  general  application  have  to  be  looked  for.  I  shall  not 
attempt  here  to  draw  up  a  list  of  such  principles,  which  in 
their  more  general  form  would  connect  themselves  with 
the  list  of  inhibitive  feelings  in  which  a  source  has  been 
sought  for  the  sense  of  moral  obligation.  But  it  will  be 
useful  to  give  one  illustration,  and  to  suggest  how  this 
may  be  applied  so  as  actually  in  some  measure  to  afford 
guidance  in  conduct.  And  I  shall  take  a  case  which  brings 
us  in  contact  again  with  considerations  already  discussed. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  we  are  able  to  estimate 
the  relative  rank  of  human  ends.  One  is  subjectively  in 
terms  of  the  degree  of  desire ;  and  this  each  person  has  to 
settle  for  himself,  the  actual  felt  strength  of  the  desire 
being  the  only  final  test.  The  other  is  an  objective  or 
rational  standard.  It  is  possible,  that  is,  to  judge  roughly 
the  rank  of  any  human  activity  on  the  basis  of  the  relative 
place  it  occupies  in  the  world,  its  bulk,  and  the  range  of  its 
influence  and  results.  And  to  this  latter  judgment  there 
may  also  be  attached  a  feeling  tone  which  leads  us  under 

142 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES   143 

certain  conditions  to  look  with  disfavor  upon  that  which 
occupies  quantitatively  a  lower  standing;  this  is  one 
pervasive  form  of  the  moral  feeling  of  constraint  which 
has  already  been  distinguished. 

Such  a  moralistic  judgment  is,  I  have  held,  subordinate, 
in  that  it  presupposes  to  begin  with  the  positive  and  asser- 
tive side  of  man's  nature,  which  is  what  fundamentally 
determines  his  end  and  ideal.  But  in  its  secondary  place, 
as  one  requirement  of  human  satisfaction,  it  does  carry 
certain  rational  conditions  which  have  to  be  met  before 
we  can  safely  acquiesce  in  what  we  take  to  be  our  wants, 
since  otherwise  these  in  the  end  are  bound,  in  so  far  as 
we  are  reasonable  beings,  to  occasion  the  discontent  that 
comes  from  violating  our  reflective  natures.  And  one 
condition  is  this,  that  an  ideal  of  life  should  actually  have 
consequences  such  as  are  capable  of  meeting  this  quanti- 
tative test.  While  it  is  not  so  that  the  true  end  for  any 
man  can  be  fully  stated  on  the  basis  of  work  done,  no 
end  is  capable  of  justification  to  the  reflective  self  which 
does  not  issue  in  an  objective  outcome  of  one  sort  or 
another.  It  is  essential  to  any  ideal  that  is  not  to  call 
forth  intellectual  disapprobation  on  the  ground  of  inher- 
ent lack  of  worth,  that  it  should  have  something  to  offer 
as  a  contribution  to  the  permanent  structure  of  reality. 
And  on  this  ground  we  can  rule  out  at  the  start  certain 
forms  of  life  as  never  acceptable  to  the  instructed  moral 
judgment.  Such  is,  in  particular,  the  life  of  mere  pleas- 
ure-getting. For  the  great  defect  of  pleasure  as  an  end 
is  its  inability  to  stand  the  test  of  the  reflective  quantita- 
tive judgment.  The  man  who  lives  for  pleasure  lives  for 
that  which  perishes  at  the  moment  of  attainment.  It 
passes,  and  leaves  no  trace;  it  does  not  build  itself  into 
the  structure  of  things,  or  set  up,  through  intention,  a 
train  of  significant  consequences.  And  consequently  there 


144  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

is  nothing  for  the  rational  mind  in  its  quest  for  reality 
to  seize  upon  in  order  to  justify  in  memory  the  momen- 
tary sense  of  significance  that  attended  it. 

When  however  we  have  made  allowance  for  such  unac- 
ceptable ideals,  there  still  remain  the  vastly  greater  num- 
ber of  human  careers  from  which  we  have  to  choose.  And 
here  the  objective  principle  does  not  tell  me  positively 
the  role  I  ought  to  play.  So  long  as  the  chance  of  perma- 
nent significance  attaches  to  an  ideal,  it  leaves  it  open 
as  a  possibility.  If  I  could  find  myself  equally  satisfied, 
approximately,  in  either  of  two  careers,  naturally  I  should 
be  led  to  condemn  myself  were  I  to  choose  the  less.  But 
normally  no  question  of  quantitative  results  ought  in 
reason  to  override  the  primary  demand  that  I  find  some 
course  of  life  in  which  it  is  possible  for  me  to  reap  the 
reward  of  a  mind  content.  Where  the  principle  now  comes 
in  is  to  warn  me  to  use  whatever  career  I  do  adopt  in  a 
way  not  to  stir  up  my  own  capacity  for  intellectual  dis- 
approval. Any  normal  occupation  has  in  it  the  possibili- 
ties of  objective  results;  that  one  should  keep  one's  eyes 
pretty  steadily  upon  these  is  the  clear  teaching  of  experi- 
ence. There  is  more  genuine  pleasure  in  work,  to  begin 
with,  when  interest  attends  upon  the  feeling  of  objective 
significance.  A  man  loses  in  large  degree  the  zest  of  the 
thing  who  does  his  task  with  an  eye  single  to  the  effects 
upon  his  own  pleasure,  or  ambition,  or  bank  account.  If 
he  can  see  his  business,  for  example,  as  a  part  of  the 
machinery  by  which  the  world's  needs  are  met,  and  not 
as  a  mere  private  money-making  concern,  it  is  hardly 
possible  that  there  should  not  be  an  accession  of  satis- 
faction. And  the  more  solid  and  permanent  the  result, 
the  less  the  chance  of  ensuing  discontent.  It  is  not  so 
much  that  we  should  do  big  things.  If  we  are  not  of  the 
caliber  for  this,  the  desire  only  means  an  uneasy  and 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES   145 

troubled  mind.  It  is  rather  that,  whatever  we  find  that 
we  particularly  care  to  do,  it  should  be  done  so  that  it 
will  approve  its  own  goodness  by  lasting,  and  so  height- 
ening in  its  degree  the  interest  of  an  interesting  world. 
Even  a  vocation  which  counts  itself  already  disinterested 
can  add  indefinitely  to  its  own  significance  by  a  more 
conscious  aiming  at  objective  permanence  in  its  product; 
philanthropy,  for  example,  is  constantly  on  the  defensive 
until  it  turns  from  the  mere  amelioration  of  suffering  as 
it  arises,  to  an  intelligent  endeavor  to  reconstruct  last- 
ingly the  world  so  as  to  make  the  continued  exercise  of 
charity  less  necessary. 

The  same  conclusion  is  borne  out  by  the  accredited 
forms  which  moral  education  tends  more  and  more  to  take. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  common  and  useful  way  of  moral  appeal 
the  machinery  of  which  is  primarily  emotional.  It  con- 
sists in  putting  men  in  the  imaginative  situation  that  shall 
automatically  touch  off  appropriate  springs  of  feeling, 
such  as  will  have  either  a  deterrent  or  a  stimulating  effect 
upon  desire.  It  is  unlikely  that  we  shall  ever  be  able  to 
dispense  with  this ;  but  the  limitations  to  its  effective- 
ness are  evident.  And  in  proportion  as  men  grow  intel- 
lectually does  its  power  over  them  tend  to  decrease,  until 
they  may  even  come  to  resent  the  attempt  to  stir  them 
up  through  their  emotions.  More  and  more,  to  the 
rational  man,  incentives  to  conduct  are  found  in  an  appeal 
to  his  own  sense  of  intellectual  self-respect,  through  the 
perception  of  relative  values  involved  in  an  impartial  sur- 
vey of  the  world  of  experience.  If  one  wishes  to  influence 
him  it  is  increasingly  safe  to  rely,  not  on  the  accredited 
emotional  sentiments  of  the  past,  but  on  the  persuasive- 
ness of  objective  interests,  as  an  offset  to  the  narrow  and 
selfish  life  which  claims  him  by  nature. 

And  on  the  negative  side,  also,  as  a  sharpener  of  the 


146  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

reluctant  conscience,  the  same  thing  plays  a  part  which 
has  hardly  been  sufficiently  recognized  by  ethical  theory, 
though  in  practice  its  moral  efficacy  has  never  been  over- 
looked. Of  all  the  tools  which  may  be  used  to  open  a 
man's  eyes  to  his  delinquencies,  on  the  side  of  their  un- 
reason, and  their  inexcusable  meanness  and  pettiness,  the 
most  powerful  in  its  possibilities,  and  on  the  whole  per- 
haps the  safest  in  its  exercise,  is  the  weapon  of  humor. 
What  humor  does,  as  a  "criticism  of  life,"  is  to  throw 
a  sudden  light  of  self-revelation  upon  the  insignificance 
of  that  which  in  our  overserious  or  perverse  or  unthinking 
moods  we  are  given  to  taking  at  its  face  value.  Accord- 
ingly it  is  a  commonplace  that  men's  conduct,  even  when 
immune  to  exhortation  or  sympathy  or  persuasive  argu- 
ment, is  often  found  to  yield  to  ridicule.  And  this  can- 
not be  wholly  due  to  the  mere  desire  to  escape  the  ill- 
opinion  of  others,  for  their  ill-opinion  is  often  more 
outspoken  in  other  forms,  and  yet  may  have  very  much 
less  effect  than  the  mere  suspicion  that  some  one  is  laugh- 
ing at  us.  And  humor  is  a  safe  tool,  because  it  is  exempt 
from  some  of  the  more  serious  dangers  of  the  moralistic 
experience  in  general.  A  spirit  of  humor  helps  to  soften 
the  asperities  of  the  moral  life,  and  keeps  us  fron.  paint- 
ing the  world  in  too  dark  a  hue;  but  most  of  all  it  pre- 
vents us  from  taking  ourselves,  and  our  private  interests 
and  opinions,  too  seriously.  And  I  should  wish  to  em- 
phasize this  in  particular  as  a  very  necessary  quali- 
fication of  any  doctrine  of  individualism.  Unless  one 
can  view  these  interests  of  his  with  a  tolerant  and  humor- 
ous eye,  and  carry  over  even  into  his  personal  enthusiasm 
for  them  an  impartial  sensj  of  their  place — a  very  minor 
place — in  the  whole  scheme  of  things,  the  individualist 
is  much  too  apt  in  practice  to  turn  into  the  egoist  or  the 
fanatic. 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES    147 

To  strike  just  the  right  note  here  is  doubtless  a  matter 
of  some  difficulty,  as  are  most  important  things  in  life. 
Anything  whatever  can  be  made  ridiculous;  to  see  this 
side  of  it,  and  nothing  more,  is  to  become  the  mere  jester, 
whose  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  ideal  moralist  is  cer- 
tainly very  slight.  But  between  a  too  solemn  sense  of 
high  importance,  and  that  conviction  of  the  intrinsic 
smallness  of  everything  in  particular  which  some  of  our 
satirists  have  displayed,  there  is  a  middle  ground.  It  is 
not  against  the  importance  of  things  that  the  spirit  of 
humor  sets  itself,  but  their  ofler-importance.  And  the 
habit  of  keeping  an  eye  out  for  the  readiness  of  our  in- 
terests to  get  out  of  proportion  need  have  no  tendency 
to  discourage  them,  provided  they  rest  on  some  basis 
more  dependable  than  a  mere  intellectual  judgment.  In 
that  case  I  do  not  have  to  be  under  the  idealistic  illusion 
to  prevent  my  interests  from  losing  their  savor  and  going 
back  on  me.  I  may  see  my  work  clear-sightedly  at  its 
true  rating,  and  still,  if  naturally  I  like  doing  the  thing, 
it  will  remain  significant,  even  while  I  am  at  the  same 
time  ready  to  be  amused  at  the  pretentiousness  of  its 
claims  when  it  can  take  me  off  my  guard.  Just  where 
the  line  is  to  be  drawn  between  seriousness  of  interest 
and  a  humorous  tolerance  no  principle  can  tell  us;  it 
must  be  left,  again,  as  in  the  end  everything  must  be 
left,  for  experience  and  common  sense  to  decide. 

I  ought  then — to  return  to  the  main  point — under 
penalty  of  being  adjudged  small  and  petty  in  my  aims, 
and  of  growing  dissatisfied  with  them,  to  be  assured  at 
the  start  that  they  offer  some  contribution  to  the  general 
stock  of  good  outside  myself.  A  rational  and  objec- 
tively-minded being  can  hardly  be  content  with  a  life  that 
does  not  take  its  significant  place  in  the  larger  economy 


148  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

of  the  universe.  And  this  will  appear  also  to  provide  a 
sufficient  basis  for  the  "social"  or  "humanitarian"  em- 
phasis which  in  modern  times  has  tended  to  displace 
that  primary  reference  to  personal  interest  on  which  the 
present  discussion  has  been  based.  It  is  no  more  healthy, 
while  we  are  engaged  in  the  active  business  of  life,  to  be 
thinking  about  the  benevolent,  or  self-sacrificing,  or 
humanitarian  character  of  our  deeds,  than  to  be  think- 
ing about  the  pleasure  they  will  bring  us — a  judgment 
it  would  be  hard  to  justify  if  it  really  were  their  service- 
able nature,  and  not  their  appeal  to  our  personal  interest, 
which  constituted  the  original  source  of  their  goodness. 
A  man  who  actually  does  something  worth  while  for  the 
world  is  in  almost  every  case  the  man  who  works  pri- 
marily because  he  likes  it,  and  not  he  who  flatters  himself 
that  he  is  "doing  the  world  good."  But  after  a  con- 
nection with  personal  interest  is  already  presupposed, 
"service"  may  have  a  very  great  significance  when  we 
come  to  search  for  principles  that  shall  help  guide  pur 
natural  predispositions  along  lines  capable  of  insuring 
lasting  satisfaction.  It  does  not  by  itself  inform  me 
what  I  am  to  do  if  I  am  told  to  "serve  humanity,"  unless 
the  advice  can  presuppose  a  prior  interest  in  certain 
kinds  of  achievement  for  their  own  sake.  Apart  from 
the  motive  that  comes  from  such  a  personal  appeal,  I 
shall  neither  know  what  to  go  to  work  at  in  particular, 
nor  am  I  likely  to  be  effective  enough  in  anything  to 
count  for  much  in  the  world's  business.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary even  that  my  choice  should  in  the  first  place  contain 
any  very  explicit  reference  to  a  value  for  mankind.  The 
born  artist  or  the  born  mathematician  is  not  called  upon 
to  reckon  up  the  amount  of  "good"  he  is  going  to  do 
before  he  devotes  himself  to  art  or  science;  the  man  of 
real  gifts  is  so  sure  that  his  product  possesses  inde- 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES    149 

pendent  value — just  because  it  is  so  satisfying  to  him — 
that  he  is  inclined  to  be  impatient  when  asked  to  prove 
its  "social"  worth.  But  at  the  same  time  the  possibility 
of  being  "good  for  something,"  though  it  does  not  create 
originally  the  persuasion  of  significance,  is  needed  if  an 
intelligent  being  is  to  be  able  to  justify  his  course  to  dis- 
interested thought;  and  this  will  mean,  with  human  na- 
ture constituted  as  it  is,  some  measure  at  least  of  social 
usefulness.  The  man  who  feels  an  inner  call  to  paint 
pictures  would  ordinarily  be  thought  foolish  if,  on  a 
purely  abstract  calculation  that  the  ministry  contributes 
more  per  capita  to  the  general  happiness,  he  were  to 
make  of  himself  a  preacher  instead.  But  if  on  scrutiny 
some  advantage  to  his  fellows  were  not  discoverable  in 
his  choice,  doubts  could  hardly  fail  to  enter  his  mind 
about  its  wisdom.  Art  at  times  actually  takes  directions 
whose  triviality  and  lack  of  large  human  value  compel 
a  new  insistence  on  art's  "social"  function,  until  it  is 
brought  back  to  lines  more  capable  of  standing  the  test 
of  reflective  significance. 

Principles  and  Conduct. — In  turning  now  to  certain 
more  general  considerations  about  the  place  of  principles 
in  the  concrete  life  of  conduct,  it  is  important  to  notice 
in  the  first  place — what  ethical  theory  has  not  always 
sufficiently  realized — that  such  principles  are  only  pre- 
liminary to  the  final  work  of  the  moral  judgment,  and 
that  this  last  is  an  act  individual  and  unique,  for  which 
no  issue  can  be  set  down  beforehand.  Ethics  as  a  science 
deals  only  with  the  ethical  judgments  of  the  past.  It 
is  never  a  direct  source  of  new  moral  truth;  and  what  as 
moral  beings  we  are  most  vitally  concerned  with  is  the 
growth  in  moral  wisdom  which  new  situations  demand. 
The  source  of  this  novel  truth  lies  rather  in  intuition, 
or  moral  tact ;  and  intuition  presupposes  a  concrete,  and 


150  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

not  an  abstract  and  scientific  habit  of  mind.  I  may 
generalize  moral  truths  already  discovered ;  but  I  get 
insight  only  by  envisaging  actual  moral  situations.  Ac- 
cordingly in  the  field  of  casuistry  the  novelist  has  always 
been  immensely  more  successful  than  the  ethical  phil- 
osopher. 

Not  of  course  that  we  cannot  make  use  of  generaliza- 
tions to  help  solve  immediate  problems  of  conduct;  for 
in  that  case  they  would  have  no  interest  for  us.  But  the 
generalizations  are  not  universals,  since  they  fall  short 
precisely  in  connection  with  the  case  in  hand.  We  can- 
not be  certain  that  past  rules  will  automatically  cover 
the  present  instance,  but  have  in  connection  with  the 
specific  circumstances  to  feel  our  way  to  an  outcome 
which,  in  its  entirety,  is  genuinely  novel.  As  accounts 
in  particular  of  what  is  right  or  wrong  in  conduct,  such 
general  moral  truths  are  only  convenient  formulations 
for  helping  us  organize  our  experience,  and  bring  the 
lessons  of  the  past  to  bear  upon  the  present.  To  say 
that  lying  is  wrong,  or  that  charity  is  a  virtue,  gives  us 
no  strict  rule  for  governing  conduct.  It  classifies  cer- 
tain kinds  of  action  roughly  by  reference  to  their  general 
tendencies,  and  in  so  far  as  new  cases  are  really  similar 
to  the  old  it  enables  us  to  have  in  a  measure  ready-made 
judgments  on  hand.  But  the  moment  the  new  case  dif- 
fers significantly  from  those  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
we  find  ourselves  compelled  to  pass  a  new  judgment.  And 
it  makes  no  difference  whether  we  say  that  it  is  always 
wrong  to  lie,  but  that  this  is  a  case  which  we  refuse  to 
call  lying,  or  whether  we  say  that  even  though  this  is  a 
lie,  yet  the  judgment  about  lying  is  only  approximately 
universal  and  the  present  case  an  exception.  Either 
way,  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  scrutinize  the  novel  situa- 
tion and  allow  it  as  a  whole  to  call  up  its  immediate  re- 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES   151 

sponse,  in  which  our  feeling  reaction  is  constitutive  and 
essential. 

And  this  response  is  a  new  and  creative  achievement, 
not  to  be  come  at  by  the  mechanical  process  of  fitting  a 
new  fact  into  familiar  pigeonholes.  No  man  who  meets 
a  genuinely  new  set  of  circumstances  which  raise  for  him 
a  case  of  conscience,  and  who  comes  to  see  what  his  new 
duty  in  the  matter  is,  can  tell  just  how  he  came  to  the 
decision.  Still  less  is  there  any  purely  "rational"  way 
of  going  to  work  to  form  it  in  the  first  place.  As  in  all 
thinking  that  is  original  and  firsthand,  a  man  starts  with 
facts,  points  of  view,  generalizations,  representing  what 
has  been  found  hitherto  to  be  the  case;  and  he  keeps  his 
mind  playing  on  the  situation,  half  blindly,  quite  experi- 
mentally, until  at  last,  he  knows  not  how,  the  light  breaks 
upon  him,  and  whereas  before  things  were  obscure  to 
him,  now  he  sees.  And  a  new  moral  truth  differs  from 
an  intellectual  one  only  by  reason  of  the  part  that  feeling, 
or  value,  plays  in  the  solution.  Instead  of  saying  that 
he  sees  this  to  be  the  "truth" — sees  the  elements  of  the 
problem,  that  is,  falling  into  a  harmonious  scheme  of 
relationships — he  now  more  naturally  says  that  he  feels 
this  to  be  "right."  And  it  happens  often  in  human  expe- 
rience that  at  a  certain  point  argument  only  confuses 
wisdom.  All  sorts  of  plausible  reasons  can  be  given  for 
a  refusal  to  accept  a  moral  judgment,  none  of  which 
may  be  capable  of  final  refutation;  in  despair  a  man  is 
driven  to  reply,  Well,  if  you  don't  yourself  feel  that  it  is 
so,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said. 

It  is  no  business  of  ethics,  accordingly,  to  endeavor  to 
apply  moral  principles  to  the  concrete  needs  of  action, 
in  the  sense  in  which  this  would  profess  to  tell  a  man  that 
he  ought  in  a  specific  case  of  difficulty  to  speak  the  truth, 
or  that  he  ought  to  be  a  total  abstainer,  or  to  vote  the 


152  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

Democratic  ticket.  That  is  something  that  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  laid  down  in  general  terms ;  it  depends  upon  the 
exact  nature  of  the  conditions,  and  of  the  man.  The 
most  that  can  be  done  is  to  draw  up  general  statements 
of  what  tends  to  be,  on  the  average,  men's  duty  in  cases 
of  a  certain  class.  There  is  one  special  sort  of  situation, 
however,  in  which  the  circumstances  render  the  possibili- 
ties of  direct  guidance  somewhat  greater.  I  have  already 
had  occasion  to  observe  that  the  value  of  a  study  of 
ethics  is  to  enable  us  to  canvass  the  various  ends  of  action 
before  we  are  put  under  the  pressure  of  the  immediate 
call  to  act.  In  the  field  of  practice,  its  primary  question 
is,  not,  Is  this  particular  act  right?  but,  What  kind  of 
a  life  is  a  good  and  desirable  life?  And  this  last  ques- 
tion has  an  immediate  relevancy  to  one  situation  in  par- 
ticular— when,  that  is,  we  are  choosing  a  "career,"  a 
general  direction  of  action.  This  is  also  a  practical 
choice,  for  which  we  need  moral  guidance ;  but  it  is  a 
choice  with  a  peculiar  character  of  its  own.  By  the  fact 
that  it  is  setting  out  to  anticipate  action,  it  is  largely 
freed  from  the  particular  conditions — which  cannot  be 
anticipated — that  make  it  so  impossible  to  lay  down  rules 
of  conduct  ahead  of  performance;  it  can  give  heed  pri- 
marily, not  to  what  a  definite  set  of  circumstances  calls 
for,  but  to  what  is  desirable  in  itself  and  good.  After  I 
have  once  committed  myself  to  an  end  I  am  in  a  measure 
helpless;  I  have  to  act  in  view  of  such  circumstances  as 
confront  me,  or  not  at  all.  But  in  choosing  the  end 
itself  I  am,  provided  I  am  at  all  fortunately  placed, 
much  more  free  to  let  inclination  and  sense  of  worth  de- 
termine my  choice. 

It  is  to  such  a  situation  that  the  previous  illustrations 
of  the  use  of  moralistic  principles  will  be  found  applying. 
Meanwhile  it  has  this  other  advantage  also,  that  the  facts 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES  153 

of  individual  disposition  and  temperament  are  here  at 
our  disposal  in  a  relatively  simple  and  straightforward 
way.     And  in  connection  with  these  latter  facts  it  is  pos- 
sible to  deal  with  the  practical  question  of  the  choice  of 
a  career  in  a  principled,  but  a  still  more  concrete  fashion. 
The  Choice  of  a  Vocation. — The  possibility  of  the  good 
life  lies  first  of  all  in  the  chance  of  finding  work  which 
will  offer  full  scope  to  my  capacities,  without  making  it 
necessary  to  overstrain  myself  if  success  is  to  be  won; 
which  does  not  lead  into  a  blind  alley  therefore,  but  may 
in  the  nature  of  things  be  expected  constantly  to  be  open- 
ing up  new   and  promising  vistas,  and  new   avenues   of 
effort ;  which  excites  my  close  interest  and  attention,  and 
my  lasting  interest,  so  that  I  shall  want  to  stick  to  it; 
and  of  whose  real  and  substantial  value  to  the  world  as 
well  as  to  myself  I  can  be  persuaded  in  my  own  mind. 
This  does  not  imply  that  life  is  to  be  all  eager  interest, 
free  from  drudgery  and  the  need  at  times  for  painful 
effort.     No  work  is  pleasant  all  of  the  time;  there  are 
bound  to  be  spots  or  zones  where  only  sheer  will  power 
will  see  us  through.     Indeed  it  is  the  only  sure  test  that 
we  have  hit  upon  our  real  forte,  and  not  been  misled  by 
unsteady  flashes  of  interest,  that  we  should  find  ourselves 
willing  to  perform  the  incidental  drudgery ;  a  mere  liking 
for  a  task  so  long  as  it  can  be  done  without  special  trouble 
on  our  part  is  very  unsafe  ground  for  settling  a  career. 
Nevertheless  so  long  as  our  work  on  the  whole  appeals  to 
us  as  drudgery,  and  leaves  us  looking  ahead  and  counting 
the  days  till  it  is  over,  we  can  be  confident  that  we  are 
on  the  wrong  track;  arid  the  risks  of  a  new  start  are 
usually  far  less  to  be  considered  than  the  certainty  of 
dulling  the  edge  of  life  through  continuing  to  apply  our 
powers  to  tasks  to  which  they  are  not  suited.     The  sec- 
ondary and  instrumental  ends  of  life  are  important,  but 


154  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

they  have  always  to  be  subordinated  to  the  intrinsic 
ones.  And  values  are  intrinsic  only  as  they  come  home 
to  us  as  personally  felt  values,  accredited  by  the  satis- 
faction they  bring. 

It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  a  certain  type  of  mind 
may  find  its  best  chance  for  happiness  in  turning  for  its 
livelihood  to  a  life  of  unexciting  routine,  so  long  as  this 
is  not  positively  unpleasant,  and  so  long  as  it  leaves  the 
time  and  energy  for  more  personally  appealing  ends  out- 
side the  hours  of  business — such  a  plan  as  Charles  Lamb 
adopted  not  unsuccessfully.  For  the  man  whose  inter- 
ests lie  in  non-commercial  things,  there  may  sometimes 
be  a  gain  in  separating  his  work  from  the  tyranny  exer- 
cised by  the  need  for  making  a  living,  sufficient  to  counter- 
balance the  loss  of  time  available  for  its  pursuit.  There 
is  even  a  certain  appeal  in  routine  itself;  so  long  as  it  is 
in  the  service  of  ends  that  can  hold  our  respect,  it  means 
that  we  at  least  shall  be  making  some  definite  addition 
to  the  fund  of  good,  however  small,  whereas  more  ambi- 
tious ends  are  often  more  precarious,  and  face  a  greater 
risk  that  they  may  come  to  nothing.  Nevertheless  the 
great  majority  of  men  will  probably  always  have  to  find 
their  staple  happiness,  if  anywhere,  in  close  connection 
with  their  daily  tasks;  and  it  is  therefore  immeasurably 
important  that  the  choice  should  be  farseeing  and  in- 
telligently made.  For  some  natures  such  a  choice  is 
fixed  within  very  narrow  limits ;  they  are  built  to  do  this 
particular  thing  in  the  world,  and  without  the  chance  to 
do  it  they  miss  their  calling,  and  lay  themselves  open  to 
inevitable  discontent.  Most  of  us  have  a  less  restricted 
range,  and  there  are  various  aptitudes  potentially  strong 
enough  to  hold  us  pleasantly.  But  probably  in  no  case 
is  the  choice  a  matter  of  indifference;  certainly  the 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES    155 

greater  number  of  human  beings  have  a  bias  which  affects 
materially  their  chances  of  a  satisfied  life. 

Where  the  choice  is  not  dictated  by  some  particular 
character  of  the  work,  as  when  a  man  has  an  inborn  com- 
pulsion to  paint  pictures,  or  fool  with  machinery,  or 
explore  new  continents,  there  are  usually  more  general 
conditions  of  contentment,  of  a  personal  sort,  which  one 
occupation  will  satisfy  rather  than  another,  and  which 
it  pays  a  man  therefore  carefully  to  explore.  Can  I, 
for  example,  work  best  under  pressure,  or  for  the  best 
results  do  I  need  leisure  and  an  unforced  interest  to  lead 
me  on?  Do  I  like  responsibility,  or  shall  I  be  more  sat- 
isfied to  leave  this  to  some  one  else,  and  do  my  appointed 
task?  Men  plainly  differ,  and  a  born  executive  who  has 
to  take  orders,  or  a  less  independent  nature  forced  into 
a  position  of  authority,  are  equally  going  to  be  actively 
unhappy.  Do  I  crave  physical  exertion  and  an  out-of- 
doors  life,  fresh  air  and  open  spaces?  It  would  be  fool- 
ish for  me  to  tie  myself  down  in  a  bank  or  a  broker's 
office,  whatever  the  opportunity  for  making  money.  Do 
I  enjoy  taking  chances  and  putting  my  fortune  to  the 
test,  or  does  uncertainty  worry  and  unstring  me,  and 
a  safe  job  attract  my  fancy  rather?  Do  I  like  to  com- 
mit myself  to  institutions  and  institutional  forms  of 
activity,  hold  official  positions  and  work  through  com- 
mittees, or  am  I  an  individualist  by  nature,  with  a  pref- 
erence for  doing  things  on  my  own  hook  and  going  my 
own  way?  If  you  really  want  to  make  your  efforts  count, 
we  are  often  told,  you  must  join  these  concerted  activi- 
ties, where  vagaries  are  repressed,  and  the  multitude  of 
small  services,  each  almost  negligible  in  itself,  are  con- 
served and  nursed  until  in  the  aggregate  they  make  the 
imposing  show  we  call  civilization.  And  to  many  there 
will  be  an  emotional  enlargement  also  in  the  sense  of  being 


156  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

an  instrument  in  a  large  and  going  concern.  But  it  is 
plain  that  one  has  thus  to  be  institutionally  minded  him- 
self if  this  is  to  be  good  advice  for  him;  for  a  different 
sort  of  person  such  a  life  only  seems  to  crush  sponta- 
neity, and  courage,  and  even  conscience,  and  to  deaden 
zest. 

The  first  requisite,  then,  for  the  successful  life,  is  that 
it  should  be  organized  along  the  lines  of  a  concrete,  grow- 
ing, active  interest,  determined  in  so  far  as  possible  by 
the  bias  of  one's  individual  nature,  but  engineered,  as  by 
using  brains  it  can  always  be,  to  bring  one  into  contact 
on  as  wide  a  front  as  possible  with  the  real  world,  and 
to  gain  as  great  a  significance  as  possible  by  the  part 
it  is  given  to  play.  And  in  particular  this  will  mean 
that  it  shall  have  a  "social"  value;  not  only  does  the 
world  of  social  relationships  supply  the  bulk  of  our  human 
interests,  but  on  its  personal  side  the  social  is  the  source 
of  peculiarly  intimate,  pure,  and  satisfying  intrinsic 
values. 

But  now  usually,  though  not  in  every  case,  this  pri- 
mary demand  needs  supplementing  by  a  second  point. 
The  danger  of  the  specialist  is  that  he  always  tends, 
unless  he  exercises  very  great  care  indeed,  to  narrow- 
ness. It  is  true  that  many  things,  most  things  perhaps, 
can  be  utilized  in  a  fashion  to  give  effectiveness  and  sig- 
nificance to  almost  any  vocation.  Still  the  contribution 
is  often  small  and  indirect;  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
justify  its  cultivation  simply  as  an  instrumental  value. 
And  even  were  it  possible  there  still  would  be  a  drawback. 
It  is  not  in  the  interests  of  a  wide  and  rich  life  that  we 
should  get  in  the  habit  of  organizing  experience  too 
closely  about  our  vocation.  It  breeds  the  professional 
type  of  mind,  for  which  the  whole  furniture  of  earth  and 
heaven  lends  itself  to  talk  of  shop ;  and  a  "professional" 
of  any  sort  falls  in  so  far  a  little  short  of  being  human. 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES    157 

At  best,  that  aspect  of  affairs  which  shows  an  immediate 
bearing  on  a  special  interest  must  itself  be  a  special  as- 
pect ;  and  there  is  a  gain  therefore  if  we  release  the  world 
at  times  from  the  necessity  of  joining  in  the  retinue  of  a 
single  personal  end,  and  allow  the  mind  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  things  for  their  immediate  and  intrinsic  inter- 
estingness.  It  is  well,  that  is,  to  cultivate  a  variety  of 
subordinate  interests  which  do  not  have  too  close  a  rela- 
tionship to  our  main  work.  This  is  needed,  too,  for  the 
sake  of  health  and  sanity;  the  main  service  which  some 
of  our  interests  have  to  render  to  the  central  life  is  just 
to  get  us  away  from  it,  that  we  may  then  return  with 
added  freshness. 

To  have  "many  tastes  and  one  hobby" — this  sums  up 
the  two  requirements  of  a  normally  good  life.  And  in 
connection  with  the  second  point  we  may  note  a  signifi- 
cance that  still  remains  to  the  notion  of  pleasure  as  the 
end.  It  is  fatal  to  translate  our  vocation  directly  into 
hedonistic  terms.  The  moment  this  is  dominated  by  a 
conscious  intention  to  get  pleasure,  and  not  by  an  in- 
terest in  the  work  itself  and  a  sense  of  its  value,  we  can 
be  sure  that  the  underlying  conditions  are  already 
changed  in  a  way  to  make  wholehearted  satisfaction  in 
it  impossible.  And  then  too,  "pleasure"  offers  no  prin- 
ciple for  the  intelligent  direction  of  work ;  it  tends  to  be 
an  intruder  rather,  interfering  with  efficiency  of  thought 
and  action. 

But  with  our  avocations  the  case  is  somewhat  differ- 
ent. Here  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure-seeking  is  not 
only  harmless;  for  most  men  it  is  an  important  ingredi- 
ent in  the  satisfying  life.  Only  rarely  can  a  man  expect 
from  his  routine  work  all  the  hedonistic  sweetening  that 
life  normally  demands.  The  average  man  needs  also  to 
have  a  more  desultory  and  irresponsible  contact  with  the 


158  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

good.  He  needs  to  be  able  to  look  forward  regularly, 
and  more  or  less  often,  to  a  succession  of  little  pleasures 
which  mean  nothing  much  individually — indeed  their  pe- 
culiar service  demands  that  they  stop  largely  with  them- 
selves— but  which  nevertheless  lighten  up  and  add  sig- 
nificance to  the  day's  outlook.  A  pipe,  a  bit  of  light 
reading,  a  favorite  dish  now  and  then,  a  rubber  at  whist 
— these  are  not  things  for  the  serious-minded  man  to 
indulge  in  hesitatingly  with  a  vaguely  disquieted  con- 
science. They  are  legitimate  aims  in  life,  to  be  planned 
for  intelligently  and  savored  wholeheartedly.  It  is  an 
unquestionable  grievance  when  any  class  of  men  find  such 
things  beyond  their  reach;  and  if,  deprived  of  a  more 
innocent  outlet,  they  turn  to  drink  and  dissipation  to 
supply  the  need,  society  has  itself  largely  to  blame.  Even 
the  man  of  high  and  serious  mood,  who  would  have  life 
always  attired  in  its  Sunday  best  with  no  relaxation  per- 
mitted, might  find  his  perspective  broadened,  as  at  least 
he  would  be  on  more  sympathetic  terms  with  his  humbler 
neighbors,  if  he  could  consent  to  see  the  place  in  life  of 
the  irrelevant,  the  amusing,  and  the  simply  pleasant. 

But  if  pleasures  are  thus  not  the  whole  of  life,  if  they 
supply  only  the  comic  relief  to  its  more  strenuous  and 
tragic  theme,  we  have  certain  principles  for  their  selec- 
tion. We  need  to  be  continually  on  guard  against  their 
usurping  a  disproportionate  share  of  our  time  and 
energy;  and  only  such  pleasures  are  rational  as  readily 
subordinate  themselves  and  keep  within  bounds.  This  is 
the  permanent  value  of  Epicureanism  and  its  modern 
successors.  Epicureanism  goes  amiss  in  that  it  would 
have  us  dine  on  what  properly  is  only  a  dessert ;  but  its 
receipt  for  the  dessert  is  excellent.  No  intelligent  man 
can  fail  to  recognize  the  superiority  in  the  long  run  of 
natural  pleasures  over  artificial  ones,  the  modest  over 


APPLICATION  OF  ETHICAL  PRINCIPLES    159 

the  extravagant,  the  mild  over  the  passionate  and  head- 
strong, the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  and  social  over  the 
crudely  physical.  It  is  not  so  clear  that  this  balance 
would  continue  to  hold  were  pleasure  itself  the  main  and 
comprehensive  goal.  But  if  pleasure  is  to  subordinate 
itself  to  a  "career,"  such  claims  are  usually  self-evident. 
The  pleasures  which  morality  agrees  in  condemning, 
whether  or  not  they  are  bad  in  themselves,  at  least  are 
out  of  proportion  in  a  life  organized  with  the  idea  of 
definite  accomplishment.  Either  they  are  disrupting  and 
active  trouble-breeders,  dissipating  bodily  vigor  as  well 
as  claiming  more  and  more  our  thoughts  and  diverting 
these  from  useful  employment;  or,  though  in  themselves 
harmless,  they  consume  a  disproportionate  amount  of 
human  energy.  The  artificial  pleasures  of  a  wealthy 
class  are  not  only  in  point  of  fact  not  very  amusing,  but 
to  every  one  with  a  true  sense  of  proportion  the  laborious 
preparation  which  they  call  for  is  wholly  out  of  harmony 
with  their  incidental  function  and  value,  and  gives  an 
unpleasant  impression  of  intellectual  futility. 

The  familiar  receipt  for  happiness  of  "limiting  our 
desires"  has  an  important  part  of  its  meaning  here.  It 
is  not  that  we  should  moderate  effort  in  the  attainment 
of  what  we  really  want,  or  even  revise  our  feeling  of  its 
value;  though  it  is  usually  wise  to  indulge  in  moderate 
expectations  of  personal  reward.  The  man  who  counts 
on  little  need  work  none  the  less  hard,  and  meanwhile 
will  avoid  much  inevitable  disappointment;  and  what 
good  does  come  will  be  to  him  clear  gain.  But  in  con- 
nection with  the  side  issues  of  life  the  principle  has  a 
direct  and  literal  claim.  A  stoical  element  of  modera- 
tion, of  repression  even,  must  enter  into  a  well-advised 
Epicureanism,  if  pleasure  is  to  keep  its  place  in  the  or- 
ganized life. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    VIRTUES.       THE    SUMMUM    BONUM 

The  Nature  of  a  Virtue. — It  remains  to  say  a  few 
words,  but  a  few  words  only,  about  those  qualities  or 
types  of  action  that  usually  are  called  the  virtues. 

A  virtue,  as  appeared  in  a  previous  chapter,  is  a  type 
of  character  recognized — in  the  first  instance  probably 
by  a  public  or  social  judgment — as  conducive  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  good  life;  and  it  is  the  only  kind  of  good 
capable  of  enlisting  our  "moral"  approval  in  the  fullest 
sense.  A  virtue  is  the  one  thing  always  and  categorically 
good.  Notice  this  does  not  mean  that  we  ought  always 
to  perform  a  certain  kind  of  act — to  speak  the  truth,  or 
pay  our  debts.  Applied  to  the  realm  of  concrete  con- 
duct, a  virtue  represents,  not  a  cast-iron  rule  of  action, 
but  a  value-consideration  which  action  needs  to  take  into 
account  in  the  process  of  making  up  its  mind.  But 
though  we  cannot  safely  say  that  a  man  ought  always  to 
tell  the  truth,  we  can  say  that  he  ought  always  to  be 
truthful.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  a  man  may  be  truth- 
ful even  when,  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  he  is  say- 
ing what  is  not  so — if  he  still  prefers  truthfulness  to 
lying.  We  need  in  other  words  to  distinguish  between 
a  virtue  and  a  virtuous  deed.  A  virtue  is  an  act,  in  a 
way.  But  it  is  primarily  an  act,  or  habit,  of  approval 
— a  rational  rather  than  a  biological  fact.  It  repre- 
sents a  method  for  the  valuing  of  conduct,  a  persistent 
disposition  to  call  certain  kinds  of  action  good.  And  so 
long  as  I  do  not  waver  in  my  allegiance,  I  may  still  be 

160 


THE  VIRTUES  161 

called  a  fundamentally  truthful  man  even  if  a  clash  with 
some  other  value  makes  it  necessary  for  me  on  occasion 
to  abandon  literal  truthtelling. 

It  follows  that  a  virtue  is  not  an  original  "principle" 
of  ethics ;  as  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  certain  kinds 
of  motive  and  intention  are  good — a  habit  of  approval 
— it  is  a  result  of  the  more  general  and  fundamental 
principles  that  have  already  been  discussed.  Any  virtue 
in  particular  may  look  for  its  support  to  a  confluence  of 
several  different  principles;  indeed  every  type  of  prin- 
ciple may  be  represented  in  a  single  case.  So,  for  exam- 
ple, of  truthtelling.  In  making  out  a  case  against  lying, 
one  might  first  appeal  to  prudential  reasons,  in  terms 
of  enlightened  self-interest.  Commonly,  in  the  world  as 
it  is  constituted,  lying  is  a  poor  way  of  advancing  one's 
personal  interests.  A  suspicion  that  he  does  not  tell 
the  truth  automatically  deprives  a  man  of  the  confidence 
of  his  fellows,  and  so  of  the  advantages  which  mutual 
confidence  brings  to  the  necessary  work  of  human  co- 
operation. If  he  thinks  he  can  depart  from  the  truth 
and  still  escape  detection,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  be  revealing 
his  own  weakmindedness,  and  his  inadequate  understand- 
ing of  human  probabilities.  To  keep  up  a  fabric  of 
deceit  is  an  almost  hopeless  task,  which  grows  at  each 
stage  more  difficult  to  sustain.  Facts,  realities,  instead 
of  backing  the  liar  and  entrenching  him,  are  sources  of 
constant  danger  to  his  edifice  of  lies;  and  even  if  he  is 
successful  in  evading  these,  it  is  usually  at  an  expense 
of  effort  and  ingenuity  that  would  much  more  profitably 
have  been  expended  in  a  different  way.  But  besides  the 
practical  folly  of  lying,  it  calls  forth  also  immediate 
judgments  of  distaste  which  bring  in  the  more  constitu- 
tive type  of  principle.  Much  lying,  perhaps  most  of  it, 
is  directly  or  indirectly  due  to  cowardice,  and  is  there- 


162  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

fore  open  to  the  emotional  condemnation  that  cowardice 
calls  forth.  The  other  most  common  motive  is  a  desire 
to  get  an  unfair  advantage;  on  this  side  lying  is  a  form 
of  injustice,  and  has  to  reckon  with  the  feeling  of  moral 
indignation.  In  some  cases,  it  is  true,  neither  of  these 
reasons  is  much  in  evidence.  When  a  Doctor  Cook 
hoaxes  the  world,  the  specific  injury  is  small,  and  perhaps 
is  compensated  by  the  addition  it  makes  to  the  gaiety  of 
nations.  In  like  manner  a  student  who  cheats  in  exam- 
ination does  not  seriously  injure  his  instructor,  or,  un- 
less some  competitive  honor  is  involved,  his  fellow  stu- 
dents. Here  the  feeling  against  the  act  is  more  subtle, 
and  definitely  weaker;  but  it  still  exists.  Perhaps  it  is 
mainly  our  dislike  of  the  habit  of  bluffing,  and  of  seeking 
for  credit  which  one  does  not  deserve — a  habit  likely  to 
reveal  the  vice  of  laziness,  and,  almost  certainly,  a  lack 
in  self-respect.  Also  it  is  an  unenviable  proof  of  in- 
tellectual shortsightedness.  It  fails  to  appreciate  the 
wider  value  that  attaches  to  an  atmosphere  of  sincerity 
in  human  affairs,  and  proceeds  lightheartedly  to  under- 
mine it  for  personal  reasons  that  are  totally  inadequate. 
Still  again,  in  a  somewhat  more  indirect  way,  lying  is 
forbidden  also  by  the  first  and  formal  type  of  principle ; 
its  tendency  is  to  lessen  the  chances  for  the  effective  ap- 
plication of  reason  to  life.  The  liar  starts  out  with  the 
full  intention  of  deceiving  others  only;  he  is  apt  to  end 
by  fooling  himself.  One  cannot  too  long  juggle  with 
facts  without  losing  to  an  extent  his  own  sense  for  reality, 
and  the  sure-footed  ability  to  distinguish  truth  from 
falsehood;  we  not  infrequently  see  men  who  lie  so 
persistently  that  they  begin  to  believe  themselves.  At 
the  very  least,  a  persistent  course  of  action  which  takes 
into  account  only  the  gullible  side  of  human  nature  is 
sure  to  affect  our  sensitiveness  to  the  existence  of  sin- 


THE  VIRTUES  163 

cerity  and  common  sense.  The  confidence  man  is  liable 
at  any  moment  to  be  tripped  up  by  his  disposition  to 
regard  everyone  as  a  possible  dupe. 

Meanwhile  when  we  cease  to  regard  the  act  of  truth- 
telling  as  simply  and  unambiguously  a  "virtue,"  and  at- 
tempt to  carry  it  back  to  its  underlying  reasons,  we  have 
a  way  of  seeing  that  it  does  not  usurp  too  high  a  place 
in  human  life  as  a  precise  rule  of  conduct.  When  telling 
an  untruth,  in  the  literal  sense,  fails  to  call  forth  any 
of  these  various  judgments  of  condemnation,  the  act  in 
that  case  ceases  to  be  morally  bad.  To  tell  a  lie  to  a 
prospective  murderer  is  not  wrong,  but  unequivocally 
right ;  and  the  man  who  should  be  willing  to  see  serious 
and  undeserved  harm  come  to  another  in  order  to  save 
the  purity  of  his  own  conscience  unstained  would  himself 
come  in  for  condemnation.  We  need  to  be  extremely  cau- 
tious in  our  analysis  of  all  such  claims  to  exemption  from 
ordinary  rules.  But  where  a  case  can  be  made  out,  we 
are  explicitly  to  accept  the  act  which  goes  contrary  to 
the  customary  judgment  as  a  moral  act. 

The  Classification  of  the  Virtues. — The  fact  that  sev- 
eral principles  thus  converge  to  give  justification  to  a 
particular  virtue  is  one  important  reason  why  a  clear- 
cut  classification  of  the  virtues  is  so  difficult.  The  form 
of  classification  that  falls  in  most  readily  with  the  pre- 
vious discussion  will  be  one  which  undertakes  to  refer  the 
various  virtues  to  the  same  general  departments  under 
which  ethical  principles  were  distinguished.  These  are, 
to  repeat,  the  formal  requirements  of  rational  method, 
the  external  conditions  for  carrying  out  these  methods, 
and  the  human  material  of  impulse  and  sentiment  which 
determines  concretely  the  direction  and  content  of  the 
good  life.  And  in  the  first  field  there  were  further  dis- 
tinguished the  demands  upon  reason,  and  those  upon  the 


164  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

will.  While  there  is  no  exclusive  connection,  most  of  the 
virtues  fall  into  groups  which  relate  themselves  rather 
closely  to  one  or  other  of  these  fields. 

The  formal  demands  of  rationality  suggest  at  once  the 
so-called  intellectual  virtues.  The  indispensableness  of 
certain  intellectual  qualities  for  the  virtuous  and  suc- 
cessful life — qualities  like  clear-headedness,  sincerity, 
open-mindedness,  largeness  of  vision,  a  sense  of  propor- 
tion— is  something  which  in  the  past  has  scarcely  had 
its  proper  recognition.  But  more  recently,  and  largely 
through  the  influence  of  science  and  the  mental  disposi- 
tion it  encourages,  they  are  beginning  to  come  into 
their  own.  The  habit  of  looking  facts  in  the  face,  of 
calling  things  by  their  right  names,  of  refusing  to  let 
desire  and  prejudice  influence  our  perception  of  what  is 
so,  is  one  altogether  necessary  to  form  if  success  on  a 
large  scale  is  to  be  expected.  In  the  past  the  disposition 
has  been  to  exalt  "values,"  rather  to  the  disparagement 
of  matter-of-fact  truth.  Men  have  felt  so  strongly  the 
importance  of  certain  things — religion,  morality,  the 
State — that  they  have  thought  it  necessary  to  shield 
them  carefully  from  adverse  influences ;  and  so  instead  of 
welcoming  criticism,  they  have  made  it  a  crime  or  a  sin 
to  suggest  that  there  perhaps  are  truths  which  existing 
opinion  has  failed  to  take  sufficiently  into  account,  and 
they  have  persecuted  the  innovator  and  the  sceptic. 

It  is  very  evident  that  this  is  a  short-sighted  and  even 
suicidal  policy  in  the  long  run.  If  a  human  end  will  not 
stand  up  before  facts,  it  inevitably  in  time  will  have  to 
be  abandoned.  And  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  really  is  an 
attainable  end,  we  are  not  going  to  work  in  the  most  effi- 
cient and  economical  way  to  attain  it  by  shutting  our 
eyes  to  anything  real  in  the  conditions  we  have  to  face. 
To  persuade  ourselves  that  a  fact  is  not  a  fact  is  the 


THE  VIRTUES  165 

surest  way  to  shipwreck  our  own  plans.  The  case 
against  prejudice  is  that  it  defeats  its  own  ends.  A 
prejudiced  man  can  avoid  disaster  only  so  long  as  his 
opinions  can  be  kept  mere  opinions,  and  excluded  from 
the  field  of  conduct;  if  he  has  to  act  upon  them,  then, 
since  the  world  goes  by  facts,  and  not  by  what  we  happen 
to  believe  are  facts,  any  state  of  mind  which  hinders  our 
getting  at  all  the  facts  attainable  is  against  our  real 
desire.  This  is  in  the  large  the  foundation  of  the  essen- 
tially modern  virtue  of  intellectual  tolerance.  So  long 
as  one  can  convince  himself  that  he  is  in  possession  of 
the  final  truth,  from  which  every  deviation  is  a  regrettable 
backsliding,  he  may  logically  believe  that  to  tolerate  is 
merely  to  be  false  to  his  trust.  But  the  modern  man 
finds  himself  less  and  less  able  to  adopt  this  self-compla- 
cent assurance.  And  if  instead  the  truth,  whether  as 
scientific  knowledge,  or  as  a  discovery  of  valuable  ways 
of  life,  is  a  slow  and  tedious  achievement  in  which  we 
still  have  much  to  learn,  we  are  lessening  our  chance  of 
finding  it  when  we  check  the  course  of  free  experimenta- 
tion, intellectual  or  practical. 

Along  with  a  desire  to  protect,  as  we  think,  important 
and  valuable  human  interests,  the  other  chief  occasion 
for  a  lack  of  sincerity  in  mental  tone  is  just  our  natural 
indolence  and  hazy-mindedness.  And  because  it  thus 
goes  back  to  qualities  of  character  somewhat  less  than 
admirable,  the  prevalent  good-natured  indulgence  toward 
small  deviations  from  the  exact  fact  has  more  impor- 
tance than  the  trivial  character  of  these  deviations  indi- 
vidually might  lead  us  to  think.  It  seems  a  harmless 
matter,  and  perhaps  a  kindly  deference  to  tender  sensi- 
bilities, to  invent  euphemisms  in  order  to  avoid  calling  a 
spade  a  spade,  and  to  smooth  the  rough  ways  of  social 
intercourse  by  polite  and  insincere  flatteries  and  fictions. 


166  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

But  even  apart  from  the  flabbiness  of  mental  texture 
which  this  encourages,  the  result  is  inevitably  to  take 
the  pungency  out  of  social  life  itself;  "polite"  society 
becomes  sooner  or  later  an  offense  to  all  the  vital  in- 
stincts. Nor  are  we  showing  the  truest  concern  for  our 
fellow  beings  when  we  try  to  shield  them  from  unpleasant 
truths.  If  our  neighbor's  sensibilities  cannot  stand  a 
reasonable  contact  with  the  real  opinions  and  feelings 
of  those  about  him,  they  are  hardly  worth  catering  to. 

One  special  form  of  intellectual  virtue  may  be  added — 
the  virtue  of  humility.  True  humility  is  intellectual 
clear-sightedness  directed  toward  ourselves  and  our  own 
merits ;  it  is  the  refusal  to  think  of  ourselves  more  highly 
than  we  ought  to  think,  as  conceit  is  a  failure  in  intellec- 
tual perspective.  Humility  does  not  seek  to  depreciate 
any  real  claims  I  may  possess.  This  equally,  though 
perhaps  at  less  risk,  violates  the  intellectual  conscience. 
But  no  man  who  is  willing  to  open  his  eyes  to  his  own 
modest  place  in  the  universe,  and  even  to  compare  him- 
self impartially  with  his  fellow  men,  will  find  much  excuse 
for  self-glorification.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
human  gradations  in  general  and  all-round  excellence 
which  theories  of  aristocracy  presuppose.  At  best  a 
given  man's  superiority  lies  in  this  or  that  direction  in 
particular,  and  elsewhere  other  men,  even  very  humble 
men  perhaps,  easily  outstrip  him. 

Turning  from  the  intellect  to  the  will,  certain  new 
types  of  virtue  are  suggested — loyalty,  courage,  and 
self-control.  Of  the  first  it  is  perhaps  enough  to  say  that 
if  loyalty  is  not  present  as  a  sincere  and  disinterested 
acceptance  of  some  objective  good  worthy  our  effort, 
and  a  persistence  in  holding  to  this  good  and  refusing 
to  betray  it  through  lightmindedness  or  weakness  or 
temptations  to  selfish  gain,  then  evidently  one  essential 


THE  VIRTUES  167 

condition  of  success  is  lacking.  A  somewhat  narrower 
form  of  loyalty  is  conscientiousness — loyalty,  that  is,  to 
our  personal  sense  of  moral  values.  Since  we  come  to 
recognize  the  good  only  through  the  medium  of  our  own 
judgments  and  feelings,  and  have  no  more  absolute  au- 
thority on  which  to  depend,  a  respect  for  our  personal 
standards  is  a  necessary  concomitant  of  loyalty.  But  it 
is  well  to  note  that  final  allegiance  is  to  the  good  itself, 
and  not  to  our  own  persuasion  of  its  worth.  And  when 
loyalty  to  conscience  begins  to  regard  conscience  as  in- 
fallible and  unchanging,  and  to  ignore  the  need  for  growth 
such  as  is  required  if  real  good  is  not  to  be  sacrificed 
to  "consistency"  and  present  imperfect  insight,  it  ceases 
to  be  in  any  unqualified  sense  a  virtue. 

A  similar  danger  exists  in  connection  with  loyalty  in 
its  larger  meaning.  It  is  easy  for  loyalty  to  wed  itself 
to  particular  forms  of  life  and  accomplishment,  and 
overlook  the  fact  that  no  single  established  form  can 
safely  be  allowed  to  claim  our  total  allegiance.  This  is 
what  makes  patriotism  a  virtue  of  a  somewhat  qualified 
sort.  Patriotic  feeling  tends  to  attach  to  existing  ar- 
rangements of  territory  and  facts  of  government,  and 
to  forget  that  government  exists  only  to  help  men  attain 
a  good  and  satisfying  life.  There  is  always  a  certain 
fanaticism  and  inhumanity  belonging  to  a  love  of  coun- 
try which  does  not  translate  itself  pretty  directly  into 
a  concern  for  the  happiness  of  individuals ;  thus  most 
Westerners  are  a  little  repelled  by  traits  in  the  Japanese 
character  not  obscurely  connected  with  its  patriotism. 

Courage  is  possibly  the  most  obvious  of  all  the  vir- 
tues. Even  in  its  higher  and  subtler  forms — as  moral 
courage — it  is  easy  to  recognize ;  and  once  recognized,  it 
calls  forth  spontaneously  our  natural  applause.  It  will 
seem  less  obvious  that  temperance  ranks  also  as  a  virtue 


168  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

of  the  will  only  if  we  confuse  temperance  with  the  nega- 
tive fact  of  "purity"  or  blamelessness.  This  last  has 
no  very  clear  title  to  the  name  of  virtue ;  if  purity  is  pre- 
served by  withdrawing  from  temptation,  risking  nothing, 
escaping  defeat  through  giving  up  the  chance  for  victory, 
it  is  a  thing  for  morality  to  condemn  rather  than  to 
praise.  Real  temperance  on  the  contrary  is  an  active 
and  even  militant  virtue;  and  any  disposition  to  look 
down  upon  the  man  of  controlled  passions  as  a  weakling 
is  clearly  a  mistake. 

The  next  list  of  virtues,  following  the  classification 
suggested,  would  be  made  up  of  those  that  grow  primarily 
out  of  the  need  for  recognizing  and  taking  account  of 
the  facts  of  the  environing  world.  Here  come  in  the 
prudential  or  business  virtues — thrift,  punctuality,  com- 
mercial honesty,  industry,  and  the  like.  In  so  far  as 
these  keep  merely  to  the  footing  of  means  to  an  end  in 
terms  of  self-interest,  and  do  not  involve  more  absolute 
emotional  enthusiasms  and  condemnations,  they  occupy  a 
relatively  low  place  in  the  ethical  life;  and  indeed  by 
some  they  would  not  be  allowed  as  moral  virtues  at  all. 
In  view  of  this,  it  is  worth  noticing  that  such  virtues  do 
normally  expand  to  bring  into  play  other  principles  and 
motives.  Punctuality  is  primarily  a  means  to  practical 
success.  But  also  it  becomes  a  form  of  justice  as  well; 
the  unpunctual  man  is  constantly  encroaching  on  the 
just  rights  of  his  neighbors,  and  robbing  them  of  a  valu- 
able asset — time.  And  so  too  does  he  reveal  qualities 
of  character  which  arouse  pur  immediate  dislike.  The 
unpunctual  man  is  in  so  far  a  weak-willed  man;  he  has 
not  the  force  of  character  to  make  him  do  things  when 
they  ought  to  be  done  against  the  protest  of  the  flesh. 

In  spite  of  the  lower  moral  standing  of  the  prudential 
virtues,  they  have  a  practical  value  that  is  very  consid- 


THE  VIRTUES       ,  169 

erable  as  a  method  of  moral  exhortation.  An  appeal 
to  more  fundamental  emotional  judgments  will  have  the 
most  permanent  results  when  the  appeal  is  successful; 
but  it  is  much  more  likely  to  miscarry.  Economic  in- 
terests are,  on  the  other  hand,  easy  for  all  men  to  see, 
and  they  furnish  powerful  incentives.  When  accordingly 
the  emphasis  of  a  virtue  bears  strongly  on  the  side  of 
enlightened  self-interest,  and  the  aid  from  higher  motives 
is  more  or  less  hazardous,  it  is  often  well  to  keep  exhorta- 
tion and  argument  pretty  much  on  this  lower  plane. 
Gambling  is  perhaps  a  case  in  point.  The  cause  of 
morality  has  sometimes  suffered  from  the  disposition  to 
take  too  high  a  moral  tone  about  such  a  vice  as  that  of 
gambling,  and  to  overwhelm  it  with  emotional  reproaches. 
The  man  who  likes  to  risk  a  little  money  for  the  fun  of 
the  thing  feels  instinctively  that  this  is  overcharged,  and 
he  is  apt  in  consequence  to  react  against  it.  It  is  safer, 
and  often  more  effective,  to  recognize  gambling  as  pri- 
marily a  business  vice,  and  to  attack  the  gambler  because 
he  is  a  fool  rather  than  because  he  is  a  villain;  though 
even  here  a  sense  of  proportion  ought  to  hold.  Pro- 
vided a  man  risks  only  what  he  can  easily  afford,  is 
scrupulous  to  see  that  no  one  else,  either,  is  encouraged 
to  risk  more  than  he  ought,  and  is  successful  in  keeping 
the  practice  outside  of  working  hours  as  a  pastime  pure 
and  simple,  gambling  seems  an  amusement  at  least  as 
harmless  as  some  others  in  better  repute.  The  diffi- 
culty, however,  lies  in  keeping  it  thus  within  bounds.  The 
gambling  spirit  needs  no  special  encouragement  to  be- 
come a  mental  habit,  for  it  is  a  part  of  that  original  lack 
of  coordination  and  persistency  in  human  nature  which 
every  consideration  of  common  sense  urges  us  to  over- 
come. The  tendency  to  trust  to  luck  for  one's  gains 
may  be  relatively  harmless  in  a  fighting  civilization;  but 


170  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

it  is  apt  to  be  fatal  under  modern  industrial  conditions. 
And  while  we  have  no  statistics  for  discovering  to  what 
extent  the  habit  of  social  gambling  affects  injuriously  the 
scientific  pretensions  of  the  business  life,  it  may  be  sus- 
pected that  the  influence  is  not  a  slight  one. 

There  remain  two  great  historic  virtues  in  particular 
— justice,  and  benevolence.  They  both  are  distinguished 
as  primarily  other-regarding  virtues,  having  to  do  with 
our  treatment  of  our  fellow  men;  and  in  this  way  they 
connect  with  those  constitutive  checks  on  conduct  to 
which  has  been  traced  the  essence  of  the  moral  ought. 
Justice  is  perhaps  to-day  the  most  central  of  all  the  vir- 
tues. If  the  good  of  life  attaches  primarily  to  the  free 
and  successful  expression  of  human  nature,  then  justice 
starts  from  the  recognition  that  other  men  have  an  equal 
claim  on  the  opportunities  which  make  this  possible.  My 
act  is  unjust  in  so  far  as  I  voluntarily  interfere  with  the 
access  of  my  neighbor  to  the  same  freedom  of  opportunity 
that  I  demand  for  myself;  justice  consists  in  the  grant- 
ing to  every  man  of  an  autonomous  control  over  his  own 
active  powers,  under  the  limiting  condition  that  he  does 
not  interfere  with  the  same  rights  in  other  men. 

It  is  perhaps  natural  to  raise  the  question  whether  this 
does  not  limit  justice  too  narrowly.  Is  it  true,  it  may 
be  asked,  that  I  am  just  to  my  neighbor  when  I  merely 
refrain  from  handicapping  his  efforts  to  exercise  his 
powers?  Suppose  natural  conditions  are  such  as  them- 
selves to  block  his  way  to  self-expression;  does  not  justice 
call  on  me  to  remove  if  I  can  these  conditions,  and  render 
him  thus  a  positive  service  in  the  attainment  of  the  good 
life?  The  matter  here  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
justice  is  a  political  as  well  as  a  personal  concept;  and 
in  terms  of  the  State  and  its  duties,  such  a  claim  may 
perhaps  be  defensible.  But  I  am  at  present  talking  only 


THE  VIRTUES  171 

of  justice  as  a  virtue;  and  a  virtue  is  predicable  merely 
of  persons,  and  not  of  institutions.  And  as  the  virtue 
of  an  individual,  the  limitation  of  the  definition  seems  to 
hold.  My  neighbor  can  call  me  unjust  if  I  interfere  with 
him  actively  in  the  expression  of  his  life;  there  is  no  in- 
justice, nothing  he  can  call  a  violation  of  his  "rights," 
if  I  simply  decline  to  go  out  of  my  way  to  remove  some 
barrier  for  which  I  am  in  no  sense  to  blame. 

This  does  not  mean  that  it  may  not  be  my  duty  to  do 
this.  But  if  so,  it  is  because  I  have  a  duty  not  merely 
to  be  just,  but  to  be  benevolent  as  well.  Benevolence 
calls  upon  me  to  do  more  than  refrain  from  interfering 
with  my  neighbor  and  lessening  his  chances.  It  calls 
upon  me  also  to  help  him  at  times  to  remove  the  obstacles 
to  his  own  happiness  for  which  I  am  not  personally  re- 
sponsible. And  here  is  the  source  of  a  theoretical  differ- 
ence between  justice  and  benevolence.  The  duties  of 
justice  can  be  in  a  sense  absolute  and  determinate,  simply 
because  they  rest  on  what  negatively  I  am  bound  to  re- 
frain from  doing.  The  moment  I  pass  certain  definite 
boundaries  I  can  be  aware  that  I  have  become  unjust ; 
and  so  I  am  called  upon  to  be  wholly  just,  and  wholly 
to  refrain  from  injustice.  But  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
being  wholly  benevolent.  The  amount  of  positive  assist- 
ance I  might  conceivably  give  to  others  is  unlimited ;  and 
therefore  just  how  benevolent  I  ought  to  be  is  a  relative 
matter,  and  can  only  be  determined  by  each  man  per- 
sonally for  himself. 

Meanwhile  it  might  be  noticed  that  in  my  capacity  as 
a  citizen  or  voter,  justice  may  sometimes  make  demands 
upon  me  which  in  my  more  private  capacity  are  left  to 
benevolence.  Under  existing  institutions  I  may  often 
be  unjustly  profiting  at  the  expense  of  others  where  no 
personal  action  would  serve  to  relieve  the  situation,  but 


172  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

only  a  change  in  the  laws  which  I  by  myself  am  unable 
to  effect.  As  an  employer  or  a  landlord,  for  example, 
I  may  conceivably  be  in  a  preferential  position  which  is 
unjust  to  other  classes,  since  it  exploits  them,  and  so 
lessens  their  chance  at  life.  But  supposing  I  am  con- 
vinced of  this,  I  should  hardly  be  considered  unjust  be- 
cause I  did  not  individually  and  voluntarily  give  up  my 
extra  gains.  For  one  thing,  justice  would  fail  to  inform 
me  on  whom  to  bestow  them;  divided  among  all  the  ex- 
ploited class  no  one  would  benefit  substantially,  while  to 
pick  out  one  beneficiary,  or  a  few,  is  arbitrary,  and  gives 
to  them  in  turn  a  technically  unfair  advantage  over 
others  with  equal  rights.  But  I  should  be  unjust  if,  with 
a  chance  to  change  the  whole  situation  by  law,  I  should 
vote  to  retain  conditions  which  benefit  me  and  my  class 
at  the  expense  of  others,  or  even  if  I  did  not  throw  my 
influence  positively  in  favor  of  a  change. 

The  preceding  considerations  also  help  to  indicate 
roughly  the  limits  to  a  profitable  exercise  of  the  virtue 
of  benevolence.  As  a  socially  valuable  asset,  its  chief  field 
lies  in  the  work  of  removing  obstacles  to  the  free  pursuit 
of  happiness,  and  not  in  supplying  the  ingredients  of  hap- 
piness ready-made.  Individuals  can  contribute  in  a  more 
direct  way  here  and  there  to  the  happiness  of  other  indi- 
viduals with  whom  they  come  in  immediate  contact, 
especially  where  they  stand  to  them  in  the  closer  relation- 
ships of  kinship  or  of  personal  friendship.  But  this  is 
incidental,  and  wholly  insufficient  to  provide  for  anyone 
the  main  content  of  a  happy  life.  It  is  a  much  surer 
receipt  for  the  pleasure  of  the  giver  himself  than  for  that 
of  the  recipient.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  motive  for 
casual  benevolence,  or  charity,  has  always  been  in  very 
large  degree  to  minister  to  the  complacency  of  the  charit- 
able person;  so  that  for  modern  scientific  charity  one  of 


THE  VIRTUES  173 

the  greatest  obstacles  to  be  overcome  lies  in  the  self- 
indulgent  practices  of  those  who,  in  their  eagerness  for  the 
pleasures  of  benevolence,  refuse  to  consider  the  ultimate 
effects  on  the  beneficiary.  Indeed  the  state  of  mind  which 
sets  out  to  take  charge  of  other  human  lives,  and  provide 
for  them  a  ready-made  happiness,  is  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  of  the  self-delusions  which  parade  under  the 
name  of  virtue;  it  spoils  weaker  natures  by  robbing  them 
of  their  self-dependence,  and  the  stronger  it  arouses  to 
feelings  of  resentment.  One  solid  benefit  has  a  chance  of 
springing  from  this  attempt  to  produce  happiness  directly. 
It  may  under  favorable  conditions  encourage  feelings  of 
human  kindliness,  and,  in  consequence,  a  mutual  under- 
standing which  facilitates  that  human  cooperation  on 
which  the  good  of  all  alike  is  dependent.  But  it  has  this 
result  only  when  it  limits  its  efforts  strictly,  and  does  not 
attempt  to  be  interfering  and  officious;  and  in  any  case 
the  result  follows  only  from  a  personal  relationship,  and 
seldom  can  be  expected  at  second  hand  and  long  range. 
There  is  one  very  comprehensive  virtue  which  remains 
to  be  noticed — the  virtue  of  self-respect.  This  is  the 
virtue  attaching  to  that  "judgment  of  triviality"  through 
which  deviations  from  the  full  stature  of  manhood  and 
the  worthy  use  of  human  powers  is  condemned.  The 
demand  of  self-respect  is  the  demand  that  we  do  nothing 
that  will  call  forth  our  own  contempt — a  very  wide  order 
indeed,  which  covers  almost  the  entire  field  of  experience. 
The  virtue  is  initiated  largely  by  the  need  we  have,  for  our 
own  satisfaction,  of  standing  well  in  the  eyes  of  our  fellow 
men ;  though  when  it  stops  here,  as  frequently  it  does,  its 
place  among  the  virtues  is  precarious.  It  leads  to  false 
pride,  to  the  wish  to  seem  respectable  whether  or  not 
this  seeming  is  backed  by  solid  merit,  to  the  intensive 
cultivation  of  the  flamboyant  qualities  that  most  easily 


174  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

appeal  to  an  unthinking  popular  taste.  But  what  is 
widely  respected  by  others  must  have  some  merit.  And 
when  a  mere  external  desire  for  applause  is  supplanted 
by  a  willingness  to  turn  these  same  capacities  for  ap- 
proval and  disapproval  toward  our  inner  selves,  with  the 
safeguarding  that  comes  from  self-knowledge  and  a  refine- 
ment of  ethical  perception,  it  becomes  what  is  perhaps 
the  most  powerful  and  ultimate  of  all  the  defenses  of  the 
good  life  against  the  forces  of  anarchy  and  self  will. 

The  Summum  Bonum. — It  will  very  likely  have  been 
noticed  that  in  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  made  no  effort 
t6  draw  up  formally  a  definition  of  the  summum  bonum. 
And  the  reason  is  that  it  seems  to  me  easy  to  exaggerate 
the  value  of  such  an  undertaking,  both  theoretically  and 
practically.  If  it  be  true  that  the  actual  features  of  the 
ethical  end  for  any  man  are  dependent  on  the  character 
of  his  own  individual  nature,  then  any  possible  formula 
which  abstracts  from  this  must  be  incompetent  to  serve  as 
a  concrete  ideal  and  goal.  It  is  bound  at  best  to  be  so 
exceedingly  vague  and  general  as  to  lose  any  chance  of 
affording  guidance  to  the  ethical  life  in  detail.  Even  the 
formula  which  I  have  proposed  for  the  individual  man's 
ideal — and  this  at  least  gets  closer  to  the  concrete  facts 
— does  not  supply  such  guidance ;  if  the  good  for  me  lies 
in  finding  the  means  to  a  settled  satisfaction  such  as  takes 
account  alike  of  positive  desire,  and  of  the  negative 
sources  of  disapproval  and  disillusionment  and  regret, 
this  is  no  more  than  the  bare  starting  point  for  the  actual 
discovery  of  the  nature  of  such  satisfaction  in  particular. 

However,  if  some  more  general  account  of  the  Highest 
Good  is  asked  for,  it  is  not  difficult  to  suggest  an  answer 
of  a  sort.  If  my  good  is  in  terms  of  a  satisfying  life 
which  takes  account  of  all  the  real  potentialities  of  my 
being,  then  the  greatest  good  we  can  conceive  will  be  the 


THE  VIRTUES  175 

attainment  of  this  same  end  by  all  possible  beings  who 
are  of  a  nature  capable  of  satisfaction.  This  to  be  sure 
is  in  the  first  instance  only  an  impersonal  statement  of 
what  the  word  "good"  means  in  its  collective  sense,  inde- 
pendently of  whether  such  a  sum  of  goods  appeals  to 
any  being  in  particular.  But  there  is  no  reason  why,  if 
qualified  a  little,  it  might  not  stand  also  for  the  good  of 
individuals.  Indeed,  there  is  every  reason  empirically 
to  say  that  the  good  of  each  is  enhanced  potentially  by 
that  of  all  the  rest,  in  so  far  as  partial  goods  are  not 
found  in  practice  to  be  incompatible.  Through  an  appeal 
to  various  facts  and  principles  of  conduct  we  can  with 
considerable  assurance  justify  the  claim  that  the  most 
genuine  human  welfare  is  normally  the  outcome  of 
cooperation  rather  than  of  competition;  that  the  exten- 
sion of  sympathy  has  a  power  to  add  to  happiness;  and 
that  a  disregard  of,  and  a  lack  of  sympathy  for,  the 
possible  happiness  of  others  is  to  the  developed  conscience 
a  source  of  discontent  and  self-defeat.  And  accordingly 
we  may  define  the  highest  good  more  exactly  as  the  good 
of  all  beings  capable  of  satisfaction  in  so  far  as  this  is 
"rational" — in  so  far,  that  is,  as  it  enters  into  a  sys- 
tematic harmony  which  reconciles  conflicts  of  interest 
without  sacrificing  any  element  of  good  unnecessarily. 

But  it  is  difficult  once  more  to  see  how  this  can  throw 
a  great  deal  of  light  on  actual  questions  of  human  interest. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  different  ends  do  conflict.  And  not 
only  does  the  formula  provide  no  solution  of  the  conflict, 
but  it  may  tend  to  encourage  an  illusory  conviction  that 
all  things  work  together  for  good,  which  may  well  serve 
to  cover  up  essential  difficulties.  And  even  in  so  far  as 
cooperative  good  is  conceivable,  to  take  this  as  our  con- 
scious goal  makes  impossible  demands,  I  have  already 
argued,  upon  our  powers  of  calculation  and  prevision. 


176  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

Neither  as  a  test  of  what  is  humanly  called  for  by  a  con- 
crete situation,  nor  as  a  motive  capable  of  making  any 
wide  and  sure  appeal,  is  the  formula  of  the  universal  wel- 
fare, then,  a  practicable  one. 

This  becomes  especially  apparent  when  we  make  explicit 
all  that  it  presupposes.  For  satisfaction  involves  not 
only  an  inner  activity,  but  external  forms  and  conditions 
of  good  as  well ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  concept  of  a 
summum  bonum  to  limit  it  to  possible  and  attainable, 
rather  than  to  imaginable  good.  We  thus  are  led  to  make 
a  further  addition ;  the  highest  good  is  the  satisfaction  of 
all  sentient  creatures  in  a  world  designed  to  raise  this 
satisfaction  to  its  utmost  limits — a  world  of  perfect 
beauty,  perfect  justice,  and  the  rest.  Such  an  imagina- 
tive reference  to  a  world  of  complete  felicity  may  be  com- 
forting at  times;  it  is  the  notion  of  heaven  familiar  to 
religion.  Even  as  an  ethical  goal  for  beings  here  and 
now,  it  may  have  the  value  of  preventing  a  too  ready 
acquiescence  in  existing  attainment.  But  evidently  it 
needs  to  be  used  cautiously  if  it  is  not  to  become  a  source 
of  ethical  danger  as  well. 

Meanwhile  I  should  be  far  from  wishing  to  deny  that 
there  are  circumstances  under  which  the  ideal  of  a  life 
of  satisfying  activity  carried  on  under  the  limiting  con- 
dition that  it  recognize  the  claims  to  a  similar  satisfaction 
on  the  part  of  others,  does  become  an  ideal  of  genuine 
practical  importance  and  value.  It  is  not  however  as  a 
summum  bonum  that  it  does  this,  but  as  an  actual  rule 
of  conduct  under  specific  conditions — in  the  field  of  poli- 
tics. Here  the  formula  loses  much  of  its  former  vague- 
ness, since  it  does  not  profess  to  tell  us  what  good  is  as 
such,  but  only  what  sort  of  conduct  reality  imposes  on 
us  as  members  of  a  community  or  state,  if  we  are  to  be 
able  to  secure  ends  that  we  assume  already  are  known, 


THE  VIRTUES  177 

and  known  to  be  desirable.  To  the  consideration  of  this 
last  I  shall  devote  a  final  chapter,  in  which  I  shall  aim 
to  bring  the  general  method  I  have  been  recommending 
somewhat  more  concretely  to  bear  upon  a  particular 
problem. 


CHAPTER  IX 

RIGHTS     AND     JUSTICE 

Natural  Rights. — It  probably  is  already  apparent  to 
the  reader  that  the  present  argument  proceeds  on  certain 
methodological  assumptions  which  in  more  recent  years 
have  been  somewhat  under  a  cloud.  It  is  explicitly  "indi- 
vidualistic," in  the  sense  that  it  holds  that  an  understand- 
ing of  the  nature  of  conduct  can  best  be  attained  through 
a  psychological  examination  of  the  individual  self  and  its 
activities,  and  that,  in  consequence,  the  concept  of  the 
"social"  is  not,  as  has  been  assumed  in  so  many  of  the 
later  developments  of  philosophy,  the  fundamental  tool 
of  an  ethical  analysis.  This  of  course  has  not  been  taken 
here  to  mean  that  we  ought  to  begin  with  the  conception 
of  purely  self -centered  and  self-seeking  units,  and  from 
this  deduce  in  a  secondary  way  the  social  life.  We  start 
from  the  self  as  we  find  it  empirically ;  and  such  a  self  is 
already  fundamentally  social,  in  the  sense  that  its  inter- 
ests are  entangled  everywhere  with  those  of  its  fellows. 
The  point  is,  simply,  that  when  we  ask  about  the  rational 
ground  for  conduct,  or  the  source  of  the  rational  hold  it 
has  upon  the  mind,  we  must  look  for  this  not  in  the  inter- 
ests of  society  directly,  but  in  the  interests  of  the  man  him- 
self. Social  interests  need  themselves  to  be  validated. 
The  existence  of  social  sympathy  is  indeed  a  self-evident 
fact;  but  the  right  of  sympathy  to  overbear  all  other 
claims  is  not  self-evident,  and  indeed  does  not  approve 
itself  to  our  natural  judgment  as  a  universal  right.  That 
social  good  plays  an  enormous  part  in  any  well-regulated 

life  cannot  be  questioned.    But  it  seems  possible  to  justify 

178 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  179 


this  in  individualistic  terms  which  shall  at  the  same  time 
guard  against  the  too  common  over-emphasis  on  the 
social,  with  its  theoretical  deficiencies,  and  its  practical 
dangers. 

The  nature  of  this  justification  has,  though  somewhat 
incidentally,  appeared  already.  It  rests  alike  upon  the 
positive  content  of  good  which  the  social  interests  intro- 
duce into  life,  and,  negatively,  on  the  fact  that  the  moral- 
istic and  inhibitive  sentiments  find  a  special  occasion  in 
this  social  content,  partly  through  the  play  of  sympathy 
and  a  sense  of  justice,  and  partly  through  the  need  that 
social  good  should  enter  largely  into  the  nature  of  the 
ideal  in  order  to  give  it  the  weight  and  consistency  neces- 
sary if  it  is  to  be  protected  against  the  "judgment  of 
triviality."  But  this  does  not  give  us  the  right  to  erect 
society,  or  the  "beloved  community,"  into  the  absolute 
and  comprehensive  end  of  conduct.  Such  an  ideal,  when 
it  is  not  adopted  off-hand  on  the  basis  of  the  particular 
appeal  it  may  make  to  certain  natures,  finds  its  theoretical 
justification  in  a  mixture  of  two  motives — the  quantita- 
tive superiority  of  public  to  private  good,  and  a  certain 
interpretation  of  the  self-realization  principle,  more  edi- 
fying than  precise  or  scientific,  which  uses  the  conception 
of  the  "social  self"  to  abolish  all  opposition  between  the 
individual  and  the  social  whole.  And  neither  of  these  two 
principles,  it  has  been  argued  in  a  preceding  chapter,  can 
be  accepted  by  ethics  as  absolute. 

I  propose  in  conclusion  to  apply  the  foregoing  method 
of  analysis  to  the  concept  of  "social  justice"  in  particu- 
lar. The  theory  of  justice  may  start  from  either  of  the 
two  opposite  points  just  indicated;  and  according  as  it 
adopts  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  is  it  apt  to  lead  to 
different  practical  conclusions.  It  may  begin  with  organ- 
ized society,  and  conceive  of  justice  as  that  which  is 


180  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

meted  out  to  the  individual  in  the  interests  of  the  "social 
whole" — the  organism  of  society  or  the  State.  Or  it 
may  start  with  the  individual  himself,  his  claims  and 
"rights,"  and  find  the  standard  of  justice  somehow  in 
connection  with  what  is  rationally  due  these  claims.  I 
shall  take  of  course  the  second  starting  point;  and  the 
result  may  be  used  to  test  to  an  extent  the  validity  of  the 
general  method. 

Rights,  and  more  particularly  "natural  rights,"  is  a 
term  not  in  particularly  good  repute  in  modern  ethical 
and  political  theory.  The  disposition  is  to  emphasize 
rather  the  notion  of  duty,  obligation,  responsibility — 
some  word  which  stands  rather  for  the  claim  which  the 
State  has  upon  the  individual  than  for  the  individual's 
claim  upon  the  State.  And  when  the  occasion  is  one 
for  preaching  public  morality  to  the  well-to-do  citizen, 
this  may  very  well  be  in  place.  But  as  a  matter  of  funda- 
mental theory  there  are  objections  to  taking  it  as  a  start- 
ing point.  Anything  which  suggests  that  the  individual 
is  for  the  sake  of  the  State,  and  not  the  State  for  the 
individual,  is  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion.  And  the 
notion  of  natural  rights  is,  historically,  just  the  weapon 
by  which  men  have  attacked  the  claim  of  existing  institu- 
tions to  continue  when  they  came  in  conflict  with  the  con- 
crete good  of  individual  men.  To  call  a  thing  a  "natural" 
right  is  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  grounded 
on  the  basic  fact  of  "human  nature,"  and  not  merely  on 
the  conventional  and  the  arbitrary. 

Not  that  the  phrase  has  always  implied  just  this  and 
nothing  more  in  its  historical  usage.  On  the  contrary, 
it  has  been  tied  up  with  a  particular  philosophical  theory 
which  has  already  been  repudiated — the  theory  that  there 
are  principles  of  intuitive  reason  which  can  be  used  to 
settle  directly  human  affairs,  among  these  being  a  number 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  181 

of  self-evident  truths  that  tell  us  about  various  inalien- 
able human  possessions — life,  liberty,  opportunity  to 
work,  property  rights — with  which  under  no  conditions 
has  any  man,  or  any  number  of  men,  the  right  to  inter- 
fere. It  may  be  agreed  at  once  that  there  is  nothing 
whatever  in  the  concrete  which  under  any  and  all  circum- 
stances belongs  to  any  man  inalienably.  Certainly  no 
human  society  has  ever  recognized  such  a  claim.  But 
this  does  not  touch  the  present  point.  All  that  is  here 
asserted  is,  that  men  have  in  an  intelligible  sense  a  natural 
right,  based  on  the  fundamental  character  of  human 
nature,  that  society  should  consider  always  their  real 
good;  and  when  it  fails  to  do  this,  justice  is  always  on 
their  side.  The  term  registers  a  protest  against  the  prac- 
tice of  taking  a  human  being  ever  as  a  mere  instrument, 
and  ignoring  his  claim  to  be  regarded  as  an  end.  What 
in  detail  will  be  the  form  these  rights  assume  depends  on 
circumstances,  which  differ  at  different  times.  But  where 
in  any  case  substantial  human  good  is  unnecessarily  sac- 
rificed, men  may,  and  ought  to,  stop  talking  about  their 
duty,  and  speak  instead  of  their  rights.  Natural  rights 
is  a  militant  concept,  not  primarily  a  theoretical  one;  it 
has  always  been  the  watchword  of  the  dispossessed,  the 
under  dog,  in  the  effort  to  gain  some  element  of  good  with- 
held from  him.  And  to  deprive  him  of  it  is  to  put  all 
the  weight  of  legitimacy  on  the  side  of  those  in  possession. 
There  are  two  main  elements  in  the  notion  of  a  right 
as  an  effective  political  concept.  In  the  first  place,  it 
involves  a  claim  on  other  people  of  some  fairly  definite 
sort,  an  obligation  on  their  part  toward  us.  But  a  mere 
claim  amounts  by  itself  to  nothing  more  than  a  pious 
wish ;  unless  there  is  some  power  to  back  the  claim,  it  will 
receive  no  serious  political  consideration,  whether  it  de- 
serves it  or  not.  This  is  the  obvious  reason  for  the  prac- 


182  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

tical  superiority  of  legal  rights  over  natural  or  moral 
ones.  They  are  felt  to  be  more  real  and  tangible  because 
the  backing  is  more  easily  to  be  discovered.  A  legal  right 
is  a  claim  upon  other  men  enforced  by  the  power  of  the 
State,  with  its  machinery  of  police,  courts  of  justice, 
armies,  and  the  like.  A  mere  natural  or  moral  right,  on 
the  contrary,  has  no  such  clearly  visible  means  of  enforce- 
ment ;  and  hence  the  disposition  to  refuse  to  call  it  a  right 
at  all  except  in  a  Utopian  and  negligible  sense. 

But  such  a  conclusion  it  is  impossible  in  practice  to 
accept.  To  say  that  there  are  no  rights,  in  any  intelli- 
gible sense,  apart  from  legal  rights,  is  to  go  contrary  to 
natural  and  unavoidable  judgments.  We  are  constantly 
making  a  distinction  between  legal  rights  and  moral 
rights.  A  thing  may  be  legal  of  which  we  strongly  dis- 
approve; it  is,  but  it  ought  not  to  be.  Apart  from  the 
bare  fact  of  force,  or  physical  power,  law  itself  gets  its 
rational  claim  upon  our  continued  acquiescence  not  be- 
cause it  is  a  law  merely,  but  because  it  is  a  just  law ;  moral 
right  is  always  the  more  ultimate  concept.  And  clearly 
there  must  be  force  behind  it  of  some  sort,  else  why  should 
rulers  take  it  into  account?  The  most  powerful  ruler 
cannot  make  any  law  he  pleases.  There  is  a  point,  near 
or  remote,  where  his  subjects  will  rebel;  and  if  they  are 
capable  of  giving  articulate  reasons,  these  are  sure  to  be 
in  terms  of  justice,  or  moral  right.  Such  a  thing  may  be 
the  law  of  the  State,  they  will  say,  but  it  is  a  law  which  no 
one  has  a  right  to  make;  and  at  the  point  where  such  a 
feeling  becomes  strong  enough,  the  power  even  of  arbi- 
trary rulers  stops. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  where  the  sanction  back  of  this 
claim  of  moral  right  is  located,  though  it  may  not  be  as 
obvious  as  the  power  vested  in  a  policeman.  Consider  the 
peculiar  case  of  international  law.  The  claim  is  often 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  183 

made  that  in  international  relationships  it  is  foolish  to 
talk  of  what  a  nation  ought  to  do,  since  there  is  no  inde- 
pendent higher  power  to  enforce  agreements.  Nothing 
prevents  it  from  acting  as  it  pleases  except  the  lack  of 
physical  power;  if  it  is  strong  enough,  international  law 
is  a  dead  letter,  and  the  appeal  to  right  a  pure  sentimen- 
tality and  failure  in  realism.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  lack  of  an  enforcing  power,  definitely  localized,  does 
not  actually  destroy  altogether  the  practical  significance 
of  certain  principles  of  equity,  as  they  have  become  embod- 
ied in  the  form  of  a  gentlemen's  agreement  among  nations. 
And  the  source  of  their  influence  is  clearly  the  existence  of 
a  public  sentiment  in  the  world  at  large.  This  sentiment 
is  called  into  existence  not  by  fear  of  any  police  power, 
which  is  here  non-existent,  but  through  ideas  that  work 
upon  the  mind  and  conscience.  If  anybody  goes  too  far 
in  the  violation  of  these,  he  knows  that  he  will  have  to 
reckon  with  the  civilized  world;  and  the  knowledge  is  in 
its  way  as  real  a  restraining  power,  though  it  does  not 
take  effect  at  just  the  same  point,  as  would  be  the  fear 
of  an  international  police. 

It  is,  accordingly,  the  rational  hold  of  certain  notions 
of  justice  upon  the  human  mind,  a  power  vague  indeed, 
and  decidedly  uncertain  in  its  operation,  but  nevertheless 
a  real  factor  in  human  affairs,  which  constitutes  the  back- 
ing of  that  claim  upon  the  conduct  of  others  which  makes 
it  possible  for  us  to  talk  intelligently  of  a  moral  right 
even  in  the  political  field ;  since  we  are  aware  that  men  will 
under  appropriate  circumstances  act  upon  such  ideas, 
which  represent  in  consequence  a  great,  though  indefinite, 
reservoir  of  latent  force.  The  mere  power  of  the  ruler  is 
not  competent  to  evoke  this  sense  of  "right,"  any  more 
than  morality  in  general  can  retain  its  hold  on  the  con- 
science when  it  is  genuinely  conceived  as  based  on  nothing 


184  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

but  the  arbitrary  will  of  an  all-powerful  God.  Power  is 
a  necessary  condition  for  rights  that  are  to  have  any 
chance  in  practice.  But  mere  power  does  not  create  even 
legal  rights,  apart  from  the  nature  of  the  ideas  which  are 
aimed  at  in  the  exercise  of  the  power,  and  whose  appeal 
to  the  human  mind  is  the  ultimate  source  of  political  force 
itself,  since  men  cannot  normally  be  got  to  pool  their 
physical  efforts  except  in  accordance  with  such  ideas. 

The  notion  of  rights  in  this  ultimate  sense  arises  in  the 
mind  to  begin  with  when  we  claim  rights  for  ourselves, 
rather  than  when  we  concede  them  to  others.  The  process 
is,  first,  I  have  as  good  a  right  as  you,  and  only  second- 
arily, You  have  as  good  a  right  as  I.  This  importance 
for  the  individual  which  the  concept  has  is  the  sufficient 
reason  why  an  attempt  to  discard  the  word  from  our 
political  vocabulary  will  surely  fail.  The  fatal  draw- 
back to  the  effort  to  show  that  there  is  no  validity  to  any 
"rights  of  man"  is  the  fact  that  no  one  in  his  senses  takes 
the  denial  seriously.  Because  the  direction  of  human 
nature  is  inevitably  toward  ends,  and  because  this  sense 
of  oneself  takes  the  form  of  a  strong  claim  for  satisfac- 
tion, the  emotional  outcome  of  this  claim — the  feeling  a 
man  has  for  his  right  to  satisfaction — is  bound  to  be  taken 
into  account.  At  the  outset  the  sense  of  rights  is  no 
more  than  this  inarticulate  feeling  that  the  presence  in 
us  of  any  strong  desire  forms  a  guarantee  that  somehow 
it  ought  to  be  met — a  feeling  which  leaves  us  with  a  sense 
of  protest  and  personal  aggrievement  in  case  the  fulfill- 
ment does  not  take  place.  The  knowledge  that  I  am  being 
disregarded  in  another  man's  plans,  the  feeling  of  impo- 
tence when  interests  vital  to  me  are  held  back  from  fruition 
because  my  fellow  beings  refuse  to  take  me  into  account 
in  their  reckonings,  will  inevitably  arouse  in  me  an  active 
resentment,  which  is  the  passionate  starting  point  of  all 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  185 

my  sense  of  rights.  Such  a  feeling  is  of  course  far  from 
accounting  wholly  for  the  distinction  between  justice  and 
injustice  in  the  enlightened  man.  But  the  emotional  sense 
of  aggrievement  and  protest  called  forth  by  any  suspicion 
of  injustice,  however  it  may  have  been  adjudged,  does  not 
in  the  beginning  seem  distinguishable  from  this  purely 
egoistic  claim  to  the  right  to  satisfaction  on  the  part  of 
desire  as  such. 

A  verification  of  this  might  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
there  are  a  considerable  number  of  people  who  seem  hon- 
estly able  to  persuade  themselves  that  right  is  bounded  by 
their  own  desires,  and  who  have  no  trouble  in  developing 
an  apparently  genuine  sense  of  injury  and  injustice  when 
for  whatever  reason  things  do  not  go  their  way.  Indeed 
it  is  probable  that  everyone  finds  at  times  his  emotional 
feeling  following  thus  the  line  of  personal  interest,  even 
when  his  reason  may  tell  him  that  it  has  no  valid  founda- 
tion. And  that  as  a  matter  of  conscious  theory  also  men 
naturally  tend  to  accept  validity  for  their  cravings,  would 
be  suggested  by  the  wide  popularity  of  such  an  argument 
as  that  which  infers  the  truth  of  immortality  from  the 
presence  in  us  of  a  longing  for  it — an  argument  which 
seems  to  presuppose  the  inherent  injustice  of  things  if 
the  demand  is  not  met.  Let  me  repeat  that  the  feeling 
on  our  part  is  not  put  forth  here  as  proof  of  an  inde- 
pendently based  right.  The  whole  point  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  search  for  any  further  answer  to  the 
question,  What  right  have  I  to  be  satisfied  ?  is  illegitimate, 
since  the  very  root  and  content  of  the  recognition  of 
rights  lies  in  this  self-evident  character  that  human  desire 
bears  within  its  own  nature. 

It  is  of  some  practical  importance  to  keep  in  mind  this 
impulsive  and  non-rational  background.  Where  it  is  not 
actively  in  evidence,  the  question  of  rights  never  rises  to 


186  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

the  dignity  of  a  live  issue.  If  people  do  not  want  anything 
very  badly,  if  they  are  not  inclined  to  resentment,  if  they 
take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  they  should  do  as  they 
are  told  by  their  superiors,  they  do  not  yet  possess  rights 
in  any  effective  political  sense,  and  the  attempt  to  bestow 
rights  upon  them  gratuitously  will  probably  fail.  For 
that  matter,  it  will  seldom  be  attempted.  It  is  very  infre- 
quently that  a  powerful  class  voluntarily  recognizes 
rights  in  its  inferiors.  It  may  feel  that  it  has  moral 
duties  toward  them,  and  try  to  perform  these  conscien- 
tiously ;  but  it  will  resent  it  if  the  performance  is  claimed 
as  a  right  on  the  other  side.  The  attitude  of  masters  to 
slaves,  of  employers  to  workmen,  of  women  to  their  domes- 
tic servants,  illustrates  typically  this  natural  disposition. 
A  woman  may  try  to  deal  benevolently  with  her  domestics ; 
but  for  an  inferior  to  claim  any  treatment  other  than  the 
mistress  sees  fit  to  accord  is  at  once  set  down  as  insolence. 
So  an  employer  will  often  cheerfully  grant  a  benefit  to 
his  employees,  who  would  take  umbrage  immediately  if  a 
union  presented  this  as  a  demand.  The  reason  usually 
lies,  not  in  any  particular  moral  turpitude,  but  simply  in 
the  fact  that  the  driving  force  of  the  notion  of  rights  is 
found  in  personal  experience ;  and  if  we  have  not  had  the 
fortune  to  have  our  own  rights  outraged  in  this  particu- 
lar way,  we  are  not  likely  to  take  very  seriously  the  state 
of  mind  of  others.  Nevertheless  this  is  fatal  to  any  genu- 
ine conception  of  a  democratic  good.  Resentment  and 
trouble-making  on  the  part  of  inferiors  may  not  be  sooth- 
ing to  the  nerves,  but  it  is  a  necessary  condition  for  the 
extension  of  human  rights. 

Justice. — It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  idea  of  rights 
cannot  be  limited  to  their  merely  self-assertive  quality. 
The  feeling  of  rebellion  which  stirs  in  me  when  I  contem- 
plate an  unjust  invasion  of  my  rights  may  find  its  explana- 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  187 

tion  in  the  upheaval  of  my  instincts  against  a  force  threat- 
ening to  put  restraint  upon  their  freedom.  But  what  we 
have  to  explain  is  not  a  feeling  merely,  but  a  concept,  an 
intellectual  notion  as  well.  And  this  new  element  reveals 
its  presence  in  the  conflict  that  may  arise  between  our 
naive  craving  for  self-expansion  and  the  perception  that 
this  is  not  always  consistent  with  the  rules  of  "justice." 
It  is  this  new  word  that  sums  up  expressly  the  fuller 
content  of  the  idea  of  rights. 

As  the  word  "rights"  lays  emphasis  on  the  positive 
claims  of  the  individual  who  urges  them,  so  justice  brings 
to  the  front  the  idea  of  a  limit  to  such  claims.  Its  dis- 
tinctive ingredient  is  an  intellectual  one — the  notion  of  a 
curb  put  upon  the  boundless  desire  for  self-gratification, 
and  bringing  it  under  an  ideal  law  of  balance  and  propor- 
tion. More  explicitly,  the  problem  of  justice  is  primarily 
the  problem  of  reconciling  the  conflicting  demands  of 
different  individuals ;  it  goes  beyond  the  primitive  feeling 
of  rights  through  its  introduction  of  the  rights  of  other 
men  also. 

The  transition  from  an  egoistic  demand  for  one's  own 
satisfaction  to  a  recognition  that  the  claims  of  other 
people  have  also  a  right  to  be  considered,  stands  in  need 
of  some  mediation.  That  a  man  will  feel  himself  abused 
when  he  is  interfered  with,  no  one  requires  to  have  proved 
to  him.  But  this  cannot  be  transferred  as  a  reason  forth- 
with to  explain  his  acceptance  of  another  man's  similar 
claims.  It  is  this  other  man's  desire  now  that  is  in  ques- 
tion ;  and  I  might  certainly  have  a  strong  craving  for  my 
own  gratification  without  being  necessitated  to  feel  the 
same  about  his.  And  in  particular  when  his  desires  clash 
with  mine,  they  are  bound  to  go  under  unless  something 
more  is  present. 

The  sentiment  that  has  the  closest  affinity  with  the  idea 


188  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

of  justice  is  the  sentiment  of  fair  play.  The  disinterested 
recognition  that  I  as  a  unit  am  on  a  par  with  any  other 
similar  unit  may  have  to  a  certain  type  of  mind  a  real 
compelling  force  to  make  him  hesitate  to  give  to  himself, 
still  more  to  any  other  single  unit,  a  preferential  position. 
It  would  be  too  much  to  claim  that  such  a  motive  is  by 
itself  powerful  enough  in  most  cases  to  counteract  the 
influence  of  our  natural  egoism.  It  is  however  true  that 
on  the  whole  the  more  clear-headed  a  man  is,  and  the  more 
jealous  of  his  intellectual  integrity,  the  more  such  consid- 
erations weigh  with  him.  It  would  probably  be  found 
that  as  a  rule  scientists  are  within  their  lights  more  ready 
to  be  just  in  their  dealings  than  are  men  busied  less  con- 
stantly with  impartial  affairs  of  reason;  and  science  has 
if  anything  a  tendency  to  deaden  the  social  sympathies. 
And  probably  the  appeal,  too,  is  much  more  general  than 
critics  of  human  nature  might  be  inclined  to  admit. 
Almost  any  reasonable  man  will  feel  impelled  to  find  some 
excuse  for  himself  if  he  is  convicted  of  sacrificing  a  greater 
to  a  lesser  number,  or  if  he  lays  claim  to  a  reward  obvi- 
ously disproportionate  to  his  services ;  and  the  need  for  an 
excuse  points  to  a  sense  In  his  own  mind  that  things 
are  not  quite  as  they  should  be.  It  is  no  doubt  easier  to 
feel  this  when  one  is  standing  off  and  observing  other  men, 
without  any  personal  concern  in  the  outcome.  But  then 
when  one  has  once  recognized  it,  he  will,  if  he  is  at  all 
clear-headed,  be  led  to  apply  it  to  himself,  and  to  admit 
that  there  is  no  more  reason  why  a  special  dispensation 
should  be  due  to  him  than  to  the  outsider  to  whom  his 
impartial  judgment  has  already  denied  it.  Or  he  learns 
to  regard  with  approval  fair  play  in  another  when  it 
works  to  his  own  advantage;  and  then  if  he  reverses  the 
judgment  of  approbation  in  his  own  case,  he  gets  a  disa- 
greeable sense  of  intellectual  inconsistency. 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  189 

This  semi-aesthetic  dislike  of  a  failure  in  proportion 
becomes  more  pronounced  when  the  situation  is  viewed  in 
its  larger  aspects.  The  spectacle  of  a  world  ruled  by 
injustice  and  inequality  is  naturally  repugnant  to  a  mind 
endued  with  any  tincture  of  the  scientific  love  of  order. 
The  confusion,  the  incalculability,  the  openness  to  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  brute  force  or  blind  luck,  the  absence  of 
any  intrinsic  fitness  in  the  outcome  such  as  the  mind  can 
rest  in,  the  substitution  of  multitudinous  conflicting  ends 
governed  by  private  caprice  for  an  objective  and  com- 
prehensive Reason  in  things,  are  considerations  that  get 
an  ever-increasing  weight  with  the  displacement  of  the 
romantic  by  the  scientific  temper.  And  along  with  this 
preference  on  the  part  of  a  reasonable  creature  for  being 
reasonable  or  consistent,  there  is  often  mingled  another 
element.  The  man  who  disdains  to  take  an  unfair  advan- 
tage because  it  distorts  the  rational  scheme  of  things, 
wherein  he  counts  for  only  one,  is  apt  also  to  be  a  man 
with  a  keen  sense  of  personal  dignity,  who  would  feel  it 
a  reflection  on  his  powers  that  he  should  have  to  think  of 
himself  as  needing  special  favors  in  order  to  hold  his  own. 

The  second  emotional  element  to  be  mentioned  as  enter- 
ing into  the  appeal  of  justice  is  in  itself  more  common, 
and  perhaps  more  powerful,  though  it  also  is  related  less 
intimately  to  the  inner  nature  of  the  concept.  A  purely 
emotional  sympathy  is  notoriously  not  sure  of  being 
effective  as  a  means  to  finished  justice,  even  while  it 
emphasizes  the  good  of  others.  It  may  lead  me  to  subor- 
dinate the  rights  of  self ;  but  too  much  self-sacrifice  is  as 
far  from  justice  on  the  one  side  as  selfishness  is  on  the 
other.  And  the  unreasoning  exercise  of  sympathy  is 
always  liable  to  exalt  the  claims  of  some  partial  object 
of  sympathy  over  equal  or  superior  claims;  so  that  it 


190  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

may  result  in  indiscriminate  benevolence,  or  an  extreme 
of  vengeance,  as  readily  as  in  strict  justice. 

Still,  without  this  ability  to  enter  sympathetically  into 
the  feelings  .of  others,  justice  would  prove  to  be  very 
inadequately  motivated.  And  a  certain  form  of  sym- 
pathy is  indeed  practically  essential  to  the  transition 
from  the  individual  to  the  social.  We  can  distinguish, 
that  is,  the  power  of  sympathy  as  it  enables  us  to  realize 
another  man's  sufferings  by  their  reflection  back  into  our 
own  passive  emotional  life — pity  is  the  more  unambiguous 
word —  and  as  it  leads  us  to  put  ourselves  actually  into 
his  situation  on  its  active  and  assertive  side.  As  the 
primary  emotional  root  of  justice  is  not  the  pain  that 
comes  to  us  as  a  secondary  consequence  of  the  aggression 
of  others,  but  the  immediate  swelling  of  revolt  on  the  part 
of  an  active  impulse  which  finds  itself  prevented  from 
expression,  so  when  a  man  protests  emotionally  against 
an  act  of  injustice  which  does  not  touch  himself,  he  is  not 
so  likely  to  be  found  dwelling  upon  the  indirect  conse- 
quences of  the  unjust  act  in  terms  of  the  suffering  it  occa- 
sions, as  he  is  to  feel  rising  within  his  breast  a  reflex  wave 
of  the  same  indignation  he  would  experience  if  he  were  in 
similar  circumstances.  Without  this  power  of  transfer- 
ring himself  through  sympathy  to  another's  situation,  the 
sentiment  of  fair  play  would  get  little  opportunity  for 
exercise. 

The  two  elements  in  the  analysis  of  justice  which  I  have 
here  distinguished  as  emotional  are  also  of  the  sort  that 
ordinarily  would  be  called  "disinterested."  This  involves 
a  distinction  about  which  quibbles  may  be  raised ;  but  it  is 
a  perfectly  clear  one  to  common  sense.  I  can  without  any 
doubt  have  a  large  personal  concern  both  in  men  and 
things  which  is  quite  different  from  the  concern  that  in 
common  language  would  be  called  a  selfish  one.  Naturally 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  191 

it  is  my  concern,  and  the  satisfaction  of  my  interest. 
But  a  happiness  which  has  as  its  presupposition  and  occa- 
sion another  person's  happiness,  it  is  an  abuse  of  lan- 
guage to  call  selfish.  And  the  actual  content  of  man's 
life,  and  so  of  justice  as  an  expression  of  his  life,  is  very 
greatly  modified  by  the  existence  of  this  peculiar  twist 
in  his  make-up  which  enables  him  to  get  satisfaction 
through  the  satisfaction  of  others. 

But  while  we  might  prefer  perhaps  as  a  matter  of  senti- 
ment to  make  our  appeal  wholly  to  such  motives,  we  are 
bound  to  recognize  that  they  vary  too  much  in  different 
men,  and  can  be  too  little  counted  on  with  safety,  to 
supply  often  the  most  effective  line  of  attack.  Disinter- 
ested feelings  are  not  only  less  intense  to  begin  with,  but 
they  are  very  insecure  and  open  to  accident ;  they  have  only 
to  come  in  conflict  with  things  that  matter  personally  to 
us  to  run  the  risk  of  being  overpowered  and  annulled. 
Hence  the  practical  insufficiency,  except  for  very  short 
spurts,  of  that  type  of  reconciliation  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  society  which  is  usually  called  humanitarian. 
Only  very  incompletely  does  this  touch  the  fundamental 
sources  of  satisfaction  which  affect  the  self  on  its  more 
purely  egoistic  side.  And  accordingly  we  have  to  ask  on 
what  general  grounds  we  are  able  to  enlist  self-interest 
also  on  the  side  of  justice. 

The  general  logic  of  the  transition  lies  on  the  surface. 
No  one  who  is  at  all  intelligent  can  fail  to  see  that  what 
he  lays  claim  to  for  himself,  his  neighbor  likewise  is  bound 
from  his  own  standpoint  to  lay  claim  to  for  himself.  And 
the  passage  to  my  own  recognition  of  these  foreign  claims 
would  be  brought  about  if  I  were  to  find  them  implicated 
in  my  own  satisfaction.  Now  although  I  may  feel  the 
force  of  my  own  rights  as  a  passionate  demand,  and  still 
decline  to  entertain  those  of  others,  I  cannot  make  of 


192  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

them  a  social  concept,  cannot  argue  about  them  and  pre- 
sent them  to  others  for  their  recognition,  without  gen- 
eralizing them,  and  so  implicitly  granting  to  the  other 
man  the  right  to  use  the  same  words  with  reference  to 
himself.  The  notion  of  justice  is  thus  a  concept  of  rea- 
son, whose  practical  force  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
men  have  discovered  that  on  the  whole  discussion  and 
argument  is  a  useful  way  of  getting  many  of  the  things 
they  want ;  and  in  the  field  of  rational  discussion  there  is 
nothing  to  limit  rights  to  oneself  or  to  certain  favored 
beings.  You  cannot  possibly  justify  yourself  in  doing 
something  that  you  blame  your  opponent  for  doing;  you 
can  do  it,  but  only  by  consenting  to  forego  rational  justi- 
fication. Argument  implies  general  principles  as  its 
basis ;  a  rational  right  is  therefore  by  definition  something 
that  can  be  made  general.  Stopping  short  of  this,  it 
thereby  loses  its  power  to  carry  rational  conviction.  A 
man  may  claim  a  right  for  himself  while  refusing  the  same 
right  to  someone  else,  and  may  get  away  with  it.  But  he 
can  hardly  be  surprised  if  the  other  man  fails  to  admit 
the  force  of  his  reasons  when  he  tries  to  show  that  it  was 
his  right.  And  since  persuasion  of  others  is  the  end  of  an 
appeal  to  rights,  unless  he  can  produce  conviction  he  has 
wasted  his  breath.  What  you  claim  for  yourself,  every 
man  whatsoever  has  the  same  right  to  claim  for  himself, 
unless  you  can  show  definite  reasons,  that  a  reasonable 
being  is  bound  to  admit,  why  the  principle  applies  in  the 
one  instance  and  not  in  the  other.  And  the  reasons  must 
be  themselves  general  ones;  it  is  not  enough  to  make  the 
difference  consist  merely  in  the  fact  that  I  am  I,  and 
that  you  are  someone  else.  Of  course  we  may  invent 
reasons  to  persuade  ourselves,  and  keep  ourselves  in  coun- 
tenance. But  if  we  expect  to  persuade  others  also,  we 
must  consider  their  state  of  mind  as  well  as  our  own. 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  193 

Apart  then  from  the  presence  of  a  natural  desire  in 
men  to  be  reasonable,  the  strength  of  the  appeal  to 
justice  will  depend  upon  the  motives  for  resorting  to 
argument  rather  than  to  force.  I  have  no  intention  of 
maintaining  that  the  superiority  of  argument  is  a  thing 
that  can  always  successfully  be  defended.  On  the  con- 
trary, men  have  been  pretty  generally  convinced  that 
force  is  sometimes  the  only  resort.  When  there  is  a  dead- 
lock and  men  refuse  to  abandon  conflicting  aims,  nothing 
is  left  to  do  but  fight  it  out.  But  this  very  statement  of 
the  situation  implies  that  in  another  sense  reason  is  more 
final  than  force.  We  are  not  merely  making  use  of  force 
in  such  a  case ;  if  that  were  all,  there  would  be  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  equally  fall  back  on  it  always.  We  are 
justifying  the  use  of  force  rationally,  by  showing  that  it 
is  the  only  way  left  to  get  a  decision.  Force  is  not  a 
substitute  for  reason  in  human  affairs ;  it  is  an  element 
in  a  rational  situation.  And  its  rational  value  lies  in  the 
fact  that  by  calling  attention  to  the  probability  of  its  use, 
we  can  often  gain  the  concessions  which  make  actual 
resort  to  it  unnecessary. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  stop  upon  the  grounds  in 
experience  for  the  judgment  that  mutual  agreement  on 
the  basis  of  reason  is  preferable  to  a  selfish  exploitation 
of  others  by  force.  There  is,  first,  the  more  obvious  loss 
that  comes  from  the  wear  and  tear  of  conflict — loss  to 
life,  property,  health,  and  the  like.  A  less  noticeable  but 
even  more  serious  loss  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which 
warfare  drains  off  intellectual  energy,  and  takes  it  away 
from  the  business  of  understanding  and  conquering  the 
world  for  man's  benefit.  In  the  second  place,  men  pro- 
gressively discover  that  their  interests  are  not  nearly 
so  inconsistent  as  they  start  out  by  believing.  They  are 
much  more  likely  to  serve  themselves  by  allowing  their 


194  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

neighbors  also  a  chance,  and  cooperating  with  them,  than 
by  trying  to  get  everything  into  their  own  hands;  this 
is  the  great  lesson  which  modern  industry  in  particular 
has  taught.  And,  finally,  one  must  recognize  the  positive 
value,  for  the  individual  himself,  of  those  more  disinter- 
ested activities  in  which  men  find  an  emotional  exaltation 
and  an  enlargement  of  life.  Apart  from  the  satisfaction 
that  comes  from  friendly  cooperation,  and  from  living  in 
an  atmosphere  of  good  will  rather  than  of  hostility,  on 
a  still  larger  scale  there  is  the  appeal  that  is  made  to  a 
man  by  the  thought  of  his  connection  with  big  movements 
and  world  tendencies.  A  successful  man  usually  has  some 
imagination;  and  it  is  not  immaterial  to  him  to  find  him- 
self identified  with  a  losing  cause.  Convince  him  that 
"justice"  is  going  to  win  over  men's  minds  in  the  end,  and 
it  will  hardly  be  enough  for  him  that  by  helping  stand  it 
off  he  can  add  meanwhile  to  his  private  bank  account. 
Certainly  it  would  argue  some  meanness  of  spirit  in  a  man 
if  the  thought  made  no  appeal  to  him  that  he  wrould  go 
down  in  history  classed  among  the  narrow-minded  obstruc- 
tionists to  good  causes — with  those  who  wilfully  for  their 
selfish  ends  fostered  human  slavery,  or  exploited  the  labor 
of  helpless  women  and  children,  or  supplied  rotten  food 
to  the  armies  of  a  nation  in  peril. 

Summary. — To  summarize,  a  "right"  is  an  instrument 
for  the  attainment  of  desirable  ends,  brought  into  exist- 
ence in  the  first  place  by  the  personal  aggrievement  which 
arises  when  we  feel  our  aims  thwarted.  As  a  tool,  it  does 
not  pretend  to  rest  upon  our  ability  to  demonstrate  philo- 
sophically a  universal  truth,  but  upon  the  fact  that  it  is 
practically  useful  for  securing  what  we  desire.  Thus  the 
right  to  liberty  differs  materially,  for  example,  from  the 
right  to  immortality.  We  cannot  justify  our  right  to 
immortality,  because  we  are  entirely  unable  to  wrest  it 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  195 

from  the  hands  of  powers  who  might  be  conceived  able  to 
bestow  it.  We  can  justify  the  right  to  liberty,  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  assertion  of  its  validity  aids  us  to 
secure  its  realization.  "Natural  rights"  thus  is  a  fighting 
concept,  incidental  to  the  process  of  reform,  and  neces- 
sary, with  a  continual  change  of  content  in  detail,  so  long 
as  men  are  engaged  in  experimenting  to  find  out  the  con- 
ditions under  which  they  can  enjoy  the  fullest  and  freest 
life.  More  definitely,  such  rights  invariably  point  to 
divisions  or  classes  in  human  society,  and  a  claim  by  some 
class  in  particular  to  opportunities  not  yet  secured, 
though  familiar  to  them  through  their  possession  by  a 
more  privileged  group.  They  involve,  in  other  words,  an 
advance  toward  greater  human  equality.  We  do  not 
speak  of  rights  as  against  nature,  when  we  set  out  to 
wrest  from  nature  a  general  extension  of  human  good ; 
rights  are  incident  to  the  warfare  of  man  with  his  more 
favored  fellow  man. 

It  is  important  to  keep  this  practical  situation  in  mind 
if  we  are  to  do  justice  to  the  historical  significance  of 
the  concept.  The  theorist,  since  he  is  not  concerned  him- 
self to  use  the  concept  but  only  to  speculate  about  it,  is 
very  apt  to  think  in  terms  of  things  that  have  been 
claimed  as  rights  in  the  past,  abstracted  from  their  actual 
function  in  history.  And  so  regarded,  it  is  in  truth 
difficult  to  justify  for  them  any  distinctive  theoretical 
standing.  The  moment  we  make  them  specific  we  discover, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  no  such  specific  right  is  inalienable, 
since  always  circumstances  can  be  imagined  that  would 
make  it  no  longer  proper  for  society  to  guarantee  it; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  trace  them  back  to  a  matter 
of  principle,  there  is  nothing  to  justify  any  particular 
group  of  rights  in  monopolizing  the  title  "natural"  to 
the  exclusion  of  innumerable  other  forms  of  possible 


196  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS 

human  good.  But  this  is  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the 
separation  which  theory  by  itself  cannot  make  on  grounds 
of  principle  is  in  history  made  for  us  by  the  concrete 
circumstances  of  the  situation,  in  so  far  as  there  comes 
to  consciousness  in  a  mass  of  men  the  recognition  that, 
for  no  principled  reason,  this  or  that  element  of  human 
good  is  being  withheld  from  them  which  others  with  no 
better  right  enjoy. 

We  cannot  therefore  stop  with  the  mere  formal  state- 
ment of  a  right,  but  must  go  on  to  interpret  it  in  each 
case  by  reference  to  the  actual  conditions  of  its  emer- 
gence. It  has  been  one  of  the  real  hindrances  to  progress 
that  the  form  which  a  "natural  right"  takes  on  some 
particular  occasion  in  history  presently  becomes  stereo- 
typed and  sacred,  and  so  causes  men  to  lose  sight  of  the 
real  motive  back  of  it — human  satisfaction,  and  the 
release  of  human  energy.  A  familiar  illustration  may  be 
found  in  the  way  in  which  the  traditional  right  to  liberty 
of  contract,  originating  in  a  protest  against  the  unintel- 
ligent restrictions  of  government  or  custom,  has  been 
transferred  uncritically  to  the  entirely  different  condi- 
tions of  modern  competitive  business.  The  "right"  of  the 
workman  to  put  himself,  by  refusing  cooperation  with 
his  fellow  workmen,  in  the  grip  of  economic  forces  which 
he  is  quite  powerless  to  control,  is  clearly,  when  trans- 
lated into  its  concrete  consequences,  a  very  different 
thing  from  that  right  to  liberty  for  which  men  have  con- 
tended in  the  past;  to  hold  the  form  while  ignoring  the 
substance  is  to  lose  touch  with  reality. 

In  the  second  place,  if  a  natural  right — a  right,  namely, 
for  which  men  are  still  contending  as  against  some  exist- 
ing disability — has  no  legal  force  back  of  it,  and  if 
nevertheless,  to  be  an  effective  claim  at  all,  it  must  have 
some  way  of  influencing  the  conduct  of  others,  on  what 


RIGHTS  AND  JUSTICE  197 

does  this  influence  depend?  I  have  answered,  On  reason, 
meaning  by  this  that  a  moral  or  natural  right  is  genuine 
only  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  put  in  a  way  that  will  persuade 
others  voluntarily  to  concede  it.  And  it  can  do  this  only 
as  it  takes  the  form  of  a  general  principle  which  applies, 
not  to  me  as  a  special  case,  but  to  everyone  alike  whom  it 
is  necessary  to  persuade.  If  I  claim  a  special  privilege  I 
must  always  be  prepared  to  answer  the  question,  Why  a 
difference  in  your  particular  case?  And  the  only  answer 
that  can  be  admitted  is,  that  the  exception  is  expedient 
as  a  means  of  securing  expansion  to  others  as  well.  Any 
purely  general  statement  that  we  can  make  about  rights 
will  attach  accordingly  not  to  claims  in  particular,  but 
only  to  this  general  claim  to  satisfaction,  to  be  inter- 
preted as  the  special  occasion  requires.  Having  got  back 
to  this,  we  can  go  no  further.  The  general  claim  to  a 
right  to  live  the  life  that  calls  into  exercise  one's  powers, 
subject  to  the  rights  of  others  to  the  same  thing,  is 
ultimate.  Ask  a  man  why  he  should  have  this  right,  and 
he  can  answer  only  by  pointing  to  the  right  itself  as  self- 
evident.  This  is  life,  this  is  the  essence  of  good ;  and 
to  refuse  it  is  to  take  at  one  blow  all  the  meaning  from 
the  word  good,  and  so  from  justice  as  a  form  and  expres- 
sion of  the  good.  A  natural  right  is  what  a  man  cannot 
give  up  without  violating  his  essential  nature.  It  may 
be  in  accordance  with  justice  that  a  few  men  only  should 
possess  the  right  to  vote ;  it  cannot  possibly  be  just  that 
only  a  few  men  should  have  the  opportunity  to  live  a  satis- 
fying life.  Conceivably  you  might  be  able  to  convince 
all  men  of  the  truth  of  the  former  statement ;  to  convince 
them  of  the  latter  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


61961 


° 


LD  21A-50m-8,'61 
(Cl795slO)476B 


General  Library 
University  of  California 


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